"The Open Window"Sep 21 '03 (Updated Sep 23 '03) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line what the hell am I supposed to write here?
So here's a short story I wrote recently. It's sort of a response to Saki's story of the same title, but I didn't want to play up that angle of it too much. Anyway, I hope people enjoy it - if not, it's gone forever. Comments? Criticism? Leave your thoughts, as this is the first fiction I've ever posted here. Oh, and sorry about the ugly formatting. THE OPEN WINDOW: a short story Most of the night we were up discussing politics, films, everything. Around 12.30 in the night, we went outside, and it was a bleak winter night, January. It hadn't snowed recently, so the ground and air were dry. As we walked around the neighborhood, not speaking, our breaths puffed into sight and vanished as quickly. I was only wearing a T-shirt and jeans; Chloe was wearing a sweatshirt she'd brought with her. "Aren't you cold?" she asked as we left. "No. I like it this way." I didn't; I just felt, initially, that it might be invigorating to step outside into the night, below freezing, without a jacket. We were out for twenty minutes. When we came back, I realized that the house wasn't as warm as I thought, and wrapped a blanket around me as I sat shivering on the couch. Chloe sat down on an armchair to my right. "Let's not talk," she said. I didn't reply. "Okay?" "Okay." We sat for near half an hour, as I thought about other nights like this in my past. My memory became a book; I was so tired that I couldn't come up with interesting thoughts to keep myself entertained, I had to rely only on my past experiences. I kept feeling my head drooping against my chest, kept jolting awake suddenly when I felt that. I looked over at Chloe after a while; she'd fallen asleep. I decided to leave her downstairs, and I went up to bed, so dizzy with exhaustion I could barely stay upright. I crawled into bed. I woke up: it was 2.30. I lay there for a few minutes, unsure what had awakened me. As the silence around me increased, I realized that I heard Chloe crying downstairs. And so I got out of bed, turned on the light, and went to the landing, deciding whether to go see what was bothering her. I walked downstairs, feeling my way through the dark, reeling and knocking my shoulder against the wall a couple of times. I came into the living room, and Chloe was sitting on the sofa, sprawled with her elbow against the arm of the sofa, supporting her head. It looked as if she'd stopped crying, she was still shaking. "Is everything all right?" I asked as I sat down beside her. I wasn't sure whether to put a hand on her shoulder - would it bother her? I just sat upright, looking at her. She turned and faced me. Her face had the expression of having seen a perpetual night: one of those nights I've gone through myself, when I've been with friends, away from home, and I go into the bathroom to wash my face. Looking at myself in the mirror, the problems of my life always come flooding back to me. "I have to tell you what happened last weekend," Chloe said. Was she responding to what I'd said? I looked at her, waiting for her to go on. "Ted's out of town. He's still gone, and that's why I wanted to stay with you. I've been staying with different friends each night. I spend my afternoons at the house, and I find friends to stay with at night." Her voice took on a strident, desperate lilt: "Neil, you're such a good friend. Can I stay with you until next weekend? I can't stay in my home." "Oh, of course you can. That's not a problem at all. What happened, though?" "Ted left Wednesday night. This was Friday. What first happened was Friday morning I woke up when the screen from our window blew out of place and landed on the bed. It was windy that night, and the rest of the morning. I put the screen in place and closed the window. "So then later I'd come home from work. Oh, and Joan asked if I could watch Casey that night, so I went to pick him up, then I came home. I pulled up to the house, I saw from outside the upstairs window was open. I went upstairs to change my clothes and close the window, I just put Casey in the playpen for a couple of minutes while I was doing that. "I hadn't seen from outside, the screen was gone. It was just lying on the bed, so I put it back in place." I couldn't tell where this story was going; that Chloe was starting it off in such detail showed its importance to her. I didn't say anything, I knew it would unfold at her own pace. "So I took Casey out to Burger King, and I went and bought a few groceries right after that. I took Casey inside and put him down for a nap - sorry, it's just really important that you're able to visualize all this - and came back out to the car to get the bags. When I got out to the car - God - the screen from the bedroom window was lying on the front seat of the car. "I went right inside, and locked up. I tried to call Ted, but he was gone." I asked, "Did you think of calling the police? I guess there's nothing they could do." "Right. I wasn't panicking, it was the middle of the day. But this was strange. So I took a nap too, and I woke up when the screen blew across the bed again. "So for that I closed the window. I stopped worrying, which was weird, I just said 'You need to relax.' I went downstairs and I watched a movie with Casey. Around nine he began to doze off. I took him upstairs, I was tired too. I came into the bedroom, and this wind hit me: the window was open again. "And I was so stupid. I just thought I hadn't closed it and thought I had, I'd been tired. I looked in the room, and the bedsheets were stripped off the bed. "I decided to sleep with Casey that night. I set the burglar alarm from the upstairs console. I'd fallen asleep, and it was ten: I woke up when I heard him talking. He was looking over at the window and talking in that direction, reaching out. "I knew something was going on, somebody was with us. I said out loud, 'Please don't hurt us. I'm a peaceful person and I want myself and my nephew to be left alone. My husband's away, and I'm scared.' I didn't know what effect this would have, I thought it might make whatever was with us happy that it was scaring me. "Casey was looking up at me when I said this, and then he looked back toward the window. After a second, the window banged open and the screen blew out of place. I jumped, but I didn't scream, and then this feeling of peace came over the room, or just everything was quiet. There was no wind outside, and Casey had a gorgeous happy smile. He kept talking toward the window. "I began going downstairs to get a glass of water and make sure I'd locked up. As I set foot at the bottom of the stairs - I was being quiet, the house had this - God, it's hard to say, a sanctified feeling that I didn't want to break - I heard a man say, 'Go upstairs. Just go.' This wasn't anything I could imagine, it was a voice, it was out loud. I was conscious, it wasn't a dream. Don't think any of that. "I turned around and began walking up the stairs. The voice was right behind me, it kept saying 'Go. Go.' I walked faster and faster, all quiet. The voice said 'Go into the bedroom. Close the door quietly. Lock it. Go set off the alarm.' "I went to do that, and Casey was sitting on the bed. The window was closed, the screen was in place. Casey sort of wheeled toward me, and followed me with his vision across the room. I hit the buttons, and the alarm went off. Casey began to cry, it was so loud. I didn't know what to do, I just sat on the bed. "A few minutes went by, and Casey looked toward the window and stopped crying. The window came open slowly, and the screen stayed in place this time. The alarm kept going, but over it I heard a siren, so I looked out the window. A police car was pulling up at the front of the house. "The voice said finally, 'It's all right. Go downstairs and meet the police.' I opened the door and the officers came running up. One of them said, 'Did you see what he looked like?' "I said, 'No, I just saw the window open.' "They told me to go upstairs and lock myself in the room. One of them said, 'If somebody knocks at your bedroom door, ask to see his badge.' They came to the door a few minutes later, so I did that, and they slid it under the door. "A few minutes after that, I heard sirens everywhere, a couple of cars were on the street, in the neighborhood. "They said I ought to go stay at a hotel or with a friend for the night. It was late, so I took off with Casey to a hotel. The officers gave us a ride. "On the way over, they said that night a lady had been raped and killed at a house down the street. "And downstairs at my place, they'd seen the window jimmied open. They said the guy had been in my house until the alarm scared him off. "I don't know what happened. These aren't the kinds of things I want to think about. I don't want to know whose voice that was. I hope that doesn't sound ungrateful. But I think I would come unglued if I began to think about what could have happened." At this point, she was not crying, and had not been for a long time. Her voice was almost analytical, controlled. It had taken her about twenty minutes for her to tell her story. "I haven't even told Ted about any of this yet. I'm going to call him tomorrow and tell him. I don't know if he'll come home." I said, "It was like the circumstances all came together so that things would be as painless for you as possible. You didn't have to confront the man, and everything like the window was arranged so that your first answers to the cops' questions would set up a different scenario for them." "Right, that's what I was thinking." "Could you ever have told them the truth?" "To be honest, I don't think so. Why do you believe me?" "Because I trust you. I think these things actually happen. They're unusual, but they do happen. I can accept that." "That's the thing, though - this has brought all my trust in everything down. I open my eyes at night and I expect to see a face staring at me in the dark. I'm always thinking, 'What if the voice comes again?'" "But the voice was protecting you. This'll sound pretentious, but it's benevolent." "But I keep coming back to all that old theological talk about no good without evil. That's what scares me most. Millions of people have no voices telling them what to do." The tempo of her voice was picking up. "That lady down the street from me, was she not good enough to survive? Why me? I found out that she was stabbed in the face twenty times." "How did you find out something like that?" "Her husband came to visit me afterwards. He didn't even seem upset: he was able to talk normally. He just told me these things, how he'd come home from work and followed the trail of blood from the basement up to the bathtub. It was like comforting me was more important to him than his wife." "Maybe it is, now. You're alive, she's gone. It's like an episode of a TV show I once saw, where a lady's lover dies, and it turns out he's married. The lady goes to comfort the wife, and it turns out that it's the lady who really needs comforting: the wife is doing fine." "But I can't stop thinking: why me? I come back to this again and again." "You're a special person. If you think in certain terms, you might realize that everything happens for a reason." At this point, she just broke down, wracked with tears for a few seconds. She composed herself and looked at me. "That's exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you so much." She shifted on the couch, and looked at the clock on the opposite wall. This was the first time, since we'd begun talking earlier, that she'd focused her eyes away from either my face or the distance outside the darkened window. "Oh!" she said, agitated. "It's late! I need to go to bed. Let's go to bed. Where should I sleep?" "There's the guest room, that's right next to my bedroom." "Again, thank you so much," she said to me as we got up. "I'll love you forever for all this." "It's okay. This is the duty of friends." I sounded pompous, and wished I hadn't said that. We walked upstairs together, and at the top of the stairs, she turned and kissed me on the lips. I pointed out the guest room, and went back to bed, tasting the trace of salt that her kiss had left. I slept in the next morning. I woke up to hear rain against the window, and as I moved and stretched in bed, I realized there was a note in my hand. Going over to the guest room, I saw that the door was open; Chloe was gone. I went to shower before reading the note. The atmosphere of the day was different; last night already seemed unreal. Hot water splashed over me, and wiped the grit and exhaustion of the night away. I ached, and I realized that a cold was coming on: I should have worn a coat when I went out walking. Rain had begun pouring, I saw, as I dressed and stepped over to the window. It flooded through the street, with sluices spouting up wherever the pavement was rocky. As the wind shifted it, the rain battered against the window, obscuring the still-dark sky and the shining streetlight, then moved away, leaving its traces running down the glass. I moved over to the bed and sat down, turning on the lamp on the nighttable and opening the folded note. Neil, I appreciated what you said to me last night. In the morning, I know you're thinking "is any of the story real?" That doesn't matter, what matters is what you said to me. You made me feel important, purposeful, and at this point in my life that's what I need. I enjoyed the idea that everything happens for a reason. If you turn that around, it sounds almost inhuman - what did the lady down the street do wrong? - but I don't intend to read into it so closely. I enjoyed the notion that you care about me, and that what happened to me was not some "random spewing of the cosmos." Now I'm the one who sounds pretentious. I enjoyed that to a fault. ____  |
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