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The Window
Keli McCain
Brooklyn, New York - Marketing
Everyday Diana followed the same routine. Upon returning home from
school, she would run up the stairs, nearly break her neck to get to the
bathroom and make her way to the kitchen to fix a grilled cheese
sandwich. She would take her daily commute to the window, and enter
another world. At the window, she could see everything that her heart
and her mind could ever imagine. At the window, she could be anyone and
do anything she wanted. In reality, she looked out the window and saw
groups of rusty brown brick buildings piled atop the other. She saw
filthy, cracked sidewalks and overloaded dumpsters that smelled and
looked as if they hadn’t been taken out for days.
Yet, on the other side of the street there
was a park, and that was where she could let her imagination roam. In
the park, there was nothing but weed infested grass, a few swings (only
one still functioned) and one slide, all surrounded by a gate. Despite
what existed in real life, in Diana’s mind there was a lot more. There
was a bright green pasture that went on forever and there were hills (if
you ran up and down them fast enough, you would have thought you were on
a rollercoaster). There were all different kinds of swings; the ones
that you could sit in, stand up on and ones for babies; there were
enough swings for everyone who entered the park. There were also slides
that never ended, and ones that finally did end in a pool filled with
turquoise-blue water that tasted like tropical fruit candy when it
splashed in your face. The park was surrounded by water and it was in
the middle of nowhere. It was an island only for children; children from
all over the world; children whose parents abandoned them or abused
them. Diana rescued these children and brought them to the island, where
they could play all day, eat an unlimited supply of candy and escape
their pain.
Diana looked out the window at the same
time everyday and saw only what she wanted to see. It was her way of
escaping the depression outside of the window and the depression that
occurred in her life. However, today was different. She stood at the
window looking down the sun drenched street, but seeing only the blue
shirted bowlegged postman as he slowly made his way from house to house,
the bulging post bag bouncing heavily on his hip. When he stopped at her
gate her heart nearly skipped a beat. There was something about him that
screamed “rescue me.” His eyes were green like the color of the
Caribbean Sea and his hair, a matching brown that was the color of the
sand. His eyes even glared at her as the sun hit, and his smile made her
feel as comfortable as a day on a warm beach, relaxing with not a care
in the world. However, everything else was a completely different story.
The postman’s uniform looked dingy and wrinkled as if he had never paid
any attention to the “dry clean only” sign on the tag. Even his shoes
were so run down they looked as if they had been run over by a truck, or
even a few trucks, at that.
This was the first time that she had
noticed the postman and when he approached her house, he caught her
staring at him from the first floor window of the brownstone.
They caught eyes and for a moment, they were no longer in their own
worlds, they were both in the same place. They were both on the island
laughing and running up and down the hills holding hands and playing
with the children they had rescued together. For that moment, everything
stopped in his world too. The annoying sound of the ambulances and
police sirens stopped. The sound of people screaming vulgar language in
the street stopped. All his worries and all his fears were gone. At that
moment, the look in her eyes took him to a simpler place and rescued him
from the chaotic world he was living in.
Then, not even realizing what had just happened, they both smiled. He
went on to finish delivering the mail and she went back to the island.
Yet, the moment that they shared would remain in their hearts forever.
Diana never saw the postman after that. The
next day, she sat in the window and stared out into the street, but he
never showed up. She figured that he was filling in for another postman
who didn’t show up to work that day, and wasn’t on his regular route, so
all she could do was hope and pray that he would have to one day come
back. Until then, she still had her imagination and in her mind she saw
him everyday when she sat at that window. He was there with her every
waking moment on the island and she had rescued him.
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