The world from the window.

This picture of a window is a prompt from #WODW. What would this picture inspire you to write about?

This Link up by #WODW requires me to write a fictional piece based on the above picture of the window.  I am excited to see where this picture will take my imagination. Enter a world of fantasy with me here.

The world from the window.

A short story by Mackenzie Glanville.

My life was lived in three rooms, well you could almost say it was one room, but I like to think of it as three. My big sister Annie would say it was one. She says that dirty curtains hung from the attic rafters did not make them rooms. I disagree, to me there has always been three rooms. The bathroom, which is the smallest of the three. It has a tiny window with bars on it, and frosted glass so we can’t see out of it. Right at the top is a small section that stays open to stop the bad smells that toilets get. I have tried to see out of it, as it faces a different direction to our other window, but I haven’t had any luck, yet! I have tried standing on the toilet, jumping off the sink and Annie would sometimes put me on her shoulders, but we were too short.

The second room is our bedroom, it’s really cosy in there. Small, but just enough space to sleep comfortably. The floor is covered in cushions of all colours, it’s like a rainbow. There are blankets and pillows and we have loads of teddy bears. Our teddy’s all have names you know. There is Emily, Sarah, Kitty, Max, Timmy, well anyway there is a lot of them so I wont tell you all their names. Well maybe next time I write you I will tell you more, and maybe a bit about how I got them and what they play with me.

The third room is my dance studio, it’s the biggest room and has no furniture, just wide open space, except for the food cupboard and a fan. Annie likes to sing so I dance and dance. I sing too, but not like she can. There is a window in that room, I like to say there is four windows, but again Annie says it’s one. She likes to be right about everything. Not me, OK yes I guess I do to. Besides our teddy’s it’s just always been us, so we kind of both like to be right. Annie says it is good we think differently or we’d be more bored, whatever that means.

So the window, you know the one I just said about, well it’s got four bits of glass and I like to look out of them a lot. Annie does too, but she gets mad sometimes, other times she cries. I call it pretend world, but Annie says it is the world from the window. It’s kind of nice what she says. She makes up these stories, like books she says. I haven’t seen a book, but Annie says they are real. They sound nice these books. Annie says they have words in them, and she teaches me these words. We have lots of paper and pencils and Annie gives me what she calls lessons.

I practice all the time, well I used to lots more, I am good at it now, Annie said so. She says I am smart. I don’t really know how you can’t be smart? So anyways that is what I am doing now. A book I mean. I am writing a book. My very first book! This is it, this you know what you are reading right now. It is called a ‘The world from the window’. Annie would like that name. I guess I should tell you Annie is gone.

Sorry about the smudge on the paper, I got upset. I cried when I told you Annie was gone. It still makes me sad. It is hard for me to write that. I like to write like she is still here, like she is telling me I am smart. When I go to sleep I cuddle my biggest teddy bear. I pretend it is Annie. It feels strange here without Annie, she was like me. Does that make sense? I mean like I never knew life before without Annie, she was me and I was her because we just had us.

I try to smell her smell on her pillow, but it is hard to now. I try see her face at the window, but it’s getting harder to remember what she looked like. I close my eyes and dance so I can try and here her voice singing for me, but it’s getting quiet.

So I look out the four windows, well four parts. I look and hope to see her there. Maybe if I tried harder I would have seen it, but I fall asleep sometimes when I’m waiting to see her. She said there is a whole other world out there, out the window. She said when she was little she used to run out there and play. She used to collect eggs from ducks and chickens. That she picked flowers and smelt them. She would tell me about how the grass felt wet when it rained and dry and hard in the summertime. I have smelt rain. I can tell it is going to rain before it does because I smell it coming. It smells so fresh.

When Annie left she smelt funny, I would say bad, but I don’t like to think about that. About how she got all stiff and werid. She was all sweaty at first and she said she was cold, but she felt hot. Then her breathing went funny, like she couldn’t get the air in. I made her food, but she didn’t eat it, and then. Then she. Then she got quiet. I wanted it to rain that day, but it was hot in here and like gold outside. The grass was gold, the sky was blue. Happy colours. They didn’t fit, and I got mad. I wanted to run away, I opened that window and crawled out, but there is wire all around out there and you cut yourself if you try to get past it. I didn’t want to be cut.

Should I have been braver, could I have stopped her going? But maybe she got better after the man took her away. I counted seven nights of her being still before he came with food and then he got really mad and took her away. But maybe she started getting air again and got better so I look out and hope to see her in the world from the window.

I have to go now and watch out the window, oh I am sorry I was rude, my name is Sadie, I’m Annie’s little sister.

Linked up with #WODW Chronicles of Chaos

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