The following is a short story I wrote for my fiction class
He won’t let me go outside. Every time that front door opens, wooden and
painted white, he is always there, blocking my way with his hulking body,
looking at me with stern eyes, “No. You know you aren’t allowed out. It’s not safe out there. “ And so, I spend my
days in confinement.
He
is not a mean or malicious captor. He
provides food regularly, and I am always allowed to wander the house
freely. He even leaves me alone. For hours I am left to my own devices, but he
is careful to lock the doors and ensure no windows are left ajar. During such stretches, I have become familiar
with every nook and cranny the house offers.
I know exactly how many steps it takes to get from the kitchen to the
dining room, from the dining room to the bathroom upstairs. I know how long it
can take to make these travels, or how quickly I tear through the house—trying
to beat my own time. I know that I can
fit in a cupboard underneath the sink but I cannot fit underneath the couch in
the living room. I know every sound the
house makes when I am alone: the heater clicking on, the rustle of the paper
map just above the heating vent in his room, the drip from the faucet in the
tub, the sound of the toilet constantly refilling itself, the gasp it makes
when it is full. I know the couch in
the living room the best. It is old and
worn from years of use. It is blue with
indented red stripes. There are three
cushions and three seats, but four or five people could sit comfortably. The couch has big, puffy armrests that could
seat two more. The two seats on the ends
recline when you pull a wooden level sticking out the side of the couch. I
often sit on the couch, curled up on a cushion, staring out of the window on a
world I am not allowed to partake in.
Gazing longingly at the activity that occurs just beyond my reach. I know the sounds that each type of car makes
when it whizzes by: the deep guttural growl of a truck, the whine of a Prius,
the sound of emergency brakes being pulled into positions, or engines being
started. I make eye contact with
passersby, but they hardly ever look for long, and when they do, I close my
eyes slowly, keeping them closed, and when I open them again—they’re gone.
He brings home
trinkets and treats for me. As I
investigate them, his eyes are alight with amusement and sometimes he plays
along. It’s during these times that I
know he cares for me.
He insists I sleep
in his bed. Before he goes to sleep he
always hunts for me throughout the house, calling my name. When he discovers me, usually on the couch,
sometimes crouched near a heating vent, and less often sitting in the middle of
the floor, staring distantly into space, he drags me up to his bedroom, closing
the door. Sometimes he leaves the room
for a just a moment; to brush his teeth, or fetch a glass of water. I quietly slip out of the room; make my way
back down the stairs to settle in on the couch.
I hear his footsteps traversing the length between the bathroom and the
bedroom, a pause, and then I hear him coming down to search. He always finds
me. Sometimes I slip behind the couch
and lay there. He moves the couch, exposing
me, and I follow him back up to his bedroom.
I don’t have to
get in bed when he does. But when the
light goes out, I can’t turn them back on.
There is a leather chair in his room across from the bed, and sometimes
I choose to sit on it, staring at him with hate-filled eyes while he settles in
for the night, knowing I cannot leave until the next morning. Sometimes I fall asleep there on the
chair. More often than not, however, I
end up crawling into bed next to him, falling asleep right where he wants
me. It is warmer there.
Some nights I get restless. I wake up bored or enraged that I am stuck in
this room, in this house. On these
nights I get out of bed. I make a
racket. I make a mess of his records, or
I knock down his books and photographs.
I make noise with anything that is within my reach. Sometimes I am so very angry with him, I
crouch over his clothes that were left carelessly strewn across the floor, and
I pee on them. On these nights he wakes up, but he doesn’t say anything. He gets out of bed, grabs me by the neck and
pushes me out of the bedroom. The door
closes and locks behind me. On these
nights I sleep on the couch, and I am cold.
Once during a
restless rage, I broke the glass in a photograph’s frame. It is still there, propped on the bookshelf,
broken.
In the morning,
the books, records, and photographs are straightened; the clothes in a hamper
waiting to be washed. Even after these
episodes, nothing really changes. He
still leaves me for hours and food is still readily available. He even still pulls me in before he leaves,
and kisses my face, tells me that he’ll miss me, and then with a goodbye, he
breezes out the door in such an effortless, easy way. The door laughs at me as the hinges squeak
quickly open, then shut, the wooden thunk announcing its finality. This nonchalant action leaves me with a yearning
jealously in my stomach, because I will never be able to use that door with
such casual confidence.
Before he leaves
for work, and after he arrives home in the evening, I make a habit of following
him around the house. I am alone so
often that his company is preferred to no company at all. When he begins to cook dinner I can regularly
be found in the darkened dining room, looking into the warmth and light of the
kitchen, watching him move about from the sink to the counter, to the cupboard
and back to the counter from the chair I sit in. But tonight I perch on the counter facing the
back door, staring intently at its façade, fantasizing about what lays beyond
it. I imagine a world I have never been
exposed to: trees and rolling fields, creatures of all shapes and sizes,
feeling the sun beat down upon me. The
spit of the oil he is cooking with brings me back into reality, and I turn my
head slowly to look at him. He catches
my gaze and smiles, tells me how nice I look when I sit so tall.
After dinner he
does one of two things. He either
retires to the office and his computer, or he chooses to read a book in the
living room, sitting on the same couch I have already spent hours on that
day. Either way, he has a cup of
tea. Tonight it is the living room, a
book, and herbal peppermint. I sit
beside him on the couch, and he wraps his arm around me. I nod off, and dream of sleeping in a bed of
long grass, with the moon smiling down into the night.
I used to try to
escape, when I first realized that the outdoors existed and there was more to
life than the living room, dining room and kitchen, stairs, office, bedroom and
bathroom.
I would sit by the
front door, crouched low, and wait for him to arrive home and open my portal to
freedom. The first time I attempted to
leave I actually succeeded in surprising him.
I bolted between his legs and the door jam as soon as the opening was
wide enough. My feet were outside, on
solid concrete. But he is quicker and
has better reflexes than I. He merely
leaned down and wrapped his arms around my stomach, lifting me up. He laughed at my efforts. I was young and there were no
repercussions. I almost made it.
He never forgot
about that first attempt, and every attempt since has been futile. My most heroic endeavor involved jumping off
of the banister of the staircase facing the door, in an effort to go over him,
rather than under. He laughed, amused at
my attempt and my antics, my jump ending in half the distance required.
I gave up trying a
few weeks after beginning. When he comes
home he still has a habit of walking with one foot bent sideways, brushing the
jam as he enters, barring even my spirit from leaving.
These attempts
must have been years ago, although time gets hazy when you don’t have schedules
or plans. I sleep and eat, wait for him
to come home, eat, sleep, and wait for him to leave. Of course, some of my time is spent hoping she will visit.
I like her. There
is something in the way she looks at me, some communication between us that
only we can feel; I know that she cares for me deeply. I also sense that she
would care just as deeply for anyone in my situation.
Whenever she comes into the house, she
immediately gathers me into her arms, I breathe in her scent, and I am
content. If she sits down, I am right
next to her. When she moves into another
room, I follow her like a lost puppy. I
think it makes him mad to watch me treat her with such relentless
adoration.
Although she
visits fairly often, I feel as though it is never enough. He is happier when she is here. He laughs more. Before she arrives, he tidies up, he tells me
to “move, or help” and I make myself scarce, afraid of the broom. I peek my head tentatively around door frames
during these cleaning sessions, and if he spots me he will play back—peeking
his head around door frames, both of us attempting to sneak up on the other,
neither of us succeeding.
And then she
sweeps in, saving him from cleaning any longer.
She kisses him on the lips, and he pulls her into him, and she whispers
in his ear. They laugh, and I wish she
would never leave.
I know that she feels bad for me, because I’ve
heard her say it. She tells him that he
should let me go out sometimes and that it would be good for me to see
something more than this house. She
tells him it is hard for her to see me cooped up like this day in and day out. The answer is always the same, “it isn’t safe
outside”.
He is going
away. He hasn’t told me, but I can sense
these things. His bags are lined up by
the front door, and he is frantically rushing around the house muttering things
under his breath, making lists aloud. I
am sitting on the staircase in the entryway, observing the action unfold in
front of me. And suddenly he races down
the hallway from the kitchen to the front door, a rush of air in his wake. He scoops up his bags, flings open the door,
and slams it behind him, turning the key in the lock. He hadn’t even glanced in my direction.
She arrives a few
hours later. I hear her stride up the
walk, and when the door opens, I am on the staircase, waiting. She smiles when she sees me, sitting
patiently, as tall as I can make myself.
She tells me what a pretty girl I am and hugs me. I let her pick me up and take me into the
kitchen. She sets me down, and I settle
in on the floor gazing up at her. She
talks in a constant stream while she prepares food for us, and her chatter is
delightful, satisfying my ears that are usually filled with silence.
Later we pad up to
his bedroom, where she settles in on the leather chair to watch a movie. I crawl into her lap where she strokes my
head and rubs my back. When the film ends we both stand up and stretch. She pulls back the sheets and comforter of
his bed and climbs in. I hop up beside
her and snuggle in, and I am happy.
In the morning,
the sun streams through the window in lines over the bed. The room heats up and I am too hot to stay
under the thick blanket. I wriggle out
of it, sitting on top of the covers. I
survey my surroundings and realize that the door to the bedroom is open, and
has been all night.
I am sitting
silently on the couch, looking out into the world when she comes down from the
bedroom. I turn my head towards the
noise. She yawns and grins while she
walks towards me. She pats me on the
head and tells me good morning. She
makes her way into the kitchen, and I hear the sink turn on, and the beep of
the microwave. I hear her move from the
kitchen to the dining room, where she sets down her mug and plunks into a
chair. I hear the rustle of a paper
being opened. Sunlight is spilling
through the window, warming my face.
In the late
afternoon, the sun has traveled across the sky, warming the house from the
outside in, and is beginning to retire for the evening. Through the windows I
can see children throwing a ball to each other in the last few rays of
light. Couples walk dogs past the
window, and a Dalmatian catches my eye.
He barks in a friendly hello, and his owners shush him and pull him
along.
She walks to the
couch with a steaming cup of tea in her hand.
She prods me to ensure she has my attention, and then she walks
purposefully to the front door. She
opens it and steps out onto the concrete.
She walks further out into the front yard, and sits down on the
steps. She has a book in her hands. She has left the front door open.
I stand up and stretch. I sit back down. I consider my options. I stand back up and walk towards the
door. I crouch near the entrance to the
outdoors, smelling the air of the outside lazily swap places with the stale air
that has been trapped inside all day. I
inch out on the concrete. She turns
around and smiles at me. She nods and
makes reassuring noises. I inch farther
out.
The sun warms my
body in a way that I have never experienced.
The smells of the outside bombard my senses, and for a moment, I am
consumed in fragrance. The sights I have never seen through the window seem to
stretch on into eternity, and the motion of a world I don’t know overwhelms
me. I bound out into the open and gasp,
my eyes widening to take in every sight.
I drink in the air around me and turn in circles, marveling at the
universe around me. I run through the
grass in front of the window I have been trapped behind, making faces at the
imaginary ghost of me, watching. I spy a
bug floating through the air and jump up to catch it. The bug buzzes away, and I chase after it
down the walk. I encounter my first tree,
and attempt to climb it. I fail. I run down the sidewalk and try to act like I
know how this works. I have observed the
various animals and people stroll down the concrete walk so many times, I think
I look like a natural and I don’t care if I don’t. I smell everything. Every plant and rock and tree I reach, I
smell. There is nothing like this in the
house, and I can’t get enough. I am far
away from the house now, and I turn around.
She is watching me intently from the sidewalk, and I can sense her
nervousness. I turn back around and
continue on my journey of freedom.
It starts to get
cold after the sun sets, and I don’t see anyone else outside alone. I have rushed through this new terrain at
such a rapid pace, I don’t remember the path I took to arrive where I am. Cars quickly whizz by and I wonder what the
word “unsafe” truly means. I wander
farther down the sidewalk, the thrill of being free fading as my hunger begins
to build. I find a field of long grass,
next to a road that is much busier with cars than the one in front of his
house, and I nestle down, hopefully unseen from the road. I try to sleep.
I jolt awake to
screeching brakes and cars slamming into one another. The high sounds of sirens can be heard in the
distance, and I lay back down. It is
frighteningly cold, and everything that was so new, and exciting earlier
presses down on me in a sinister, unfamiliar way. The darkness looms around me, and I hear the
grass behind me stir. I jerk away from
the noise, and bound forward into the street.
I am met with oncoming headlights, blaring horns, and squealing
tires. I freeze in panic and fear. The horns continue and the headlights flash
over and over. I gain control and race
away from the noise. As my eyes readjust
to the shadows of the walk, I make out a thick hedge of bushes. I traverse their length until I find an
opening big enough for me to slip in, and instantly the world quiets. I make my way deftly between the branches
until I found an alcove deep enough in the hedge to feel safe. I crouch in the moist earth. After hours enclosed in the hedge, my pulse
slows, and I am able to pursue sleep once again.
In the morning, I awaken to a faint sound reaching
my ears. It is my name. Over and over again, but in a tone I have
never heard my name spoken in before.
It’s panic. She is calling me to
her. I jump up, and make my way out of
the bush. I move towards the sound. When it becomes clear what direction it is
coming from, I run. When she spots me
she lets out a sob of relief. She bends
down, picks me up, and bawls into my back.
She clutches me tightly and tells me how worried she was, and how bad I
was for running away. We walk back to
his house together, relieved.
In the morning,
she leaves. That evening, after hours of
solitude, he returns. He pats me on the head, and pulls me towards him, kissing
me on the face. He tells me how much he
missed me. We walk to the kitchen
together, and he prepares our food.
After dinner, he sits in the living room reading a book and drinking a
cup of tea. I sit on the couch, looking
out the window.
