Windows To Our Soul

  She never feared the dark, whereas children her age would cower and ask their parents to check under the bed and in their closets for any monsters hiding and waiting to pounce them. No, she didn't bother with them, her parents wouldn't humor her either, even if she asked. She never did.

  She was eight, she'd lost count on how many times she'd ask her grandmother to tell her a story as they sat in front of a great bay window staring at the great expanse of trees and grass. Sometimes they'd change, some days they would be an ocean, other days they would be in a canyon, most of the time they were in a forest. 

  She never mentioned this to anyone, she didn't feel the need to share this information she thought everyone already knew. She'd garnered odd looks from the other children if she ever brought it up at school though, so after the first few times, she kept her mouth shut after that. 

  "Do you see the changing scene?" It was simple question, so she answered with a simple answer.

  "Yes." 

  "Good. Now listen to me very carefully, I'm going to tell you a very important story." Despite her age her grandmother's voice was always firm, never wavered or quivered, never hesitant and absolutely never without any confidence. However, when she said this, she sounded scared. 

  "There was once a man, he was stout, average looking, easy to blend in, easy to overlook." She swallowed thickly, she gripped the armrests of her chair, her knuckles turning white. "But this man, he wanted to be looked at, wanted to be watched, he wanted someone to notice him. He wanted all eyes to be on him."

  The girl shifted in her seat, impatiently waiting for her grandmother to go on. 

  "He did everything to be noticed, he tried every feasible way to be noticed, and yet no one spared him glance that lasted longer than mere seconds. So, he turned to the mystical arts." Another pause, she grabbed the glass of water sitting on the coffee table and took a drink. "He visited shrinks, shrines, wells and fountains, even going to self proclaimed wizards. With each and every failed attempt his need to be noticed grew stronger and stronger until he was near mad with it. And one day he noticed a peddler sleeping, and among their goods was a glass case. It was dirty and cracked, but it was loved. Despite it being glass, it was opaque, he couldn't see what was inside." Her voice was becoming hoarse with each word. As if she wasn't supposed to say anything about this.

  The girl felt a slight ringing in her ears. As if she weren't supposed to be hearing this. It felt like a steadying hum of electrifying power. Despite all this her grandmother carried on, only drinking her glass of water to relieve the dryness of her throat.

  "The man's curiosity grew. Multiplying immensely, and so he unlatched the box only to find-" she coughed and the scene behind the window shifted into a blur and finally rested in a pasture that goes on and on for miles. "Inside there were petals of red daffodils. Poppy seeds the sizes of apricots. And a bloom of a pastel blue rose. The peddler had awoken without his knowledge and asked him 'Would you like to make a wish?' and the man had eagerly agreed, his sanity slipping. And so the peddler continued 'Crush the seed and make a wish, and so you can only make one wish, you cannot take this wish back, nor can you wish for more wishes.' The peddler smiled at the man's enthusiastic agreement and took a seed and crushed it." The scene changed again, as if the window was growing restless. "He made his wish, and the peddler smiled a wide, wide, toothless grin." Her grandmother shivered, and so did she. A chill ran up her spine, like some clawed fingers were slowly dancing on it.

  "And the man got what he wanted, people noticed him, he was given all the attention he wanted. But the peddler had failed to mention that every wish came with a price. The man was slowly driven to insanity once more, when even in his own room, even when he was all alone, he could feel the stares, he could feel the paranoia of being watched all the time. He tried to find the peddler again, to take back his wish." She was coughing a lot now, they became longer coughs and harder ones, worrying ones. But she carried on, staring down the bay window like she was daring it to do more. The scenes were changing rapidly now, only resting in one place for only mere seconds before becoming a blur and landing somewhere entirely different again.

  "The man died, he killed himself. No one came to the funeral, but one mere peddler. Who smiled a wide, wide, toothless grin, and dropped a red daffodil petal. The end." It was said with such a finality that she felt the ringing in her ears stopped, the claws, her grandmother stopped coughing, and the bay window had gone back to showing the great expanse of trees and grass as if it's whole episode hadn't happened.

  "What...what was the point of this story grandma? And why was the window so...weird?" Other questions nagged at her mind, clawing at her skull. Resting on her tongue to be set free. They felt like flies buzzing around her head in the heat of summer. They nagged, they pulled, they clawed. But she knew from her experience at school, she shouldn't say too much. She knew that even if she never asked these questions that nagged at her mind like how her mother nags her for playing in the mud, her face would betray her. So she stood up and faced her grandmother, keeping the bay window always in her sight.

  "Oh, dear...you'll know soon enough..." She smiled, a toothy one, showing of her pearly white and straight teeth. But from the corner of her eye she could see the reflection of her grandmother in the bay window smiling a wide, wide, toothless grin.