• A Very Noisy Window



    It’s a solid white room. Simple as that, no other color is present, no other color was considered. The floor is white tile, and the doorknob on the door; is also white. And the one chair located right in the middle is of the same color. So monotonous yet so revealing and loud, describing the very soul of it’s owner, Mistress Jane Locke Rousseau, richest women in New York, completely unknown and less famous then a homeless person. In fact, only three people know her, and at a past time we frequently visited her. Eventually we lost interest and we now stop bi-weekly to drop off some food. We then leave and when we return the food is gone and we walk off with little conversation with Mistress Jane Locke Rousseau.
    As one walks into her room you immediately notice the bare white walls, floor, and the obnoxiously loud plit-plat of your footfalls against the tile flooring and then there she is sitting in her chair, her head pointing to the right while wearing a weak yet powerful smile. She was a statue never standing, sleeping or as far as we knew eating.
    Her room is actually two rooms cut by a wall with a small arch that separates the two halves. She sits in the middle of the second room, and that is where you see her, sitting in the exact center of the small arch, almost like a painting against a solid white background.
    Today it was my turn to visit Mistress Jane Locke Rousseau and in my hand was some cheese and crackers. It was simple but that was the way she liked things. I walked up to her apartment, walked in and entered a magnificent apartment vibrant in delicate high class fixtures and art, yet there was nothing else. No food, or fridge, nor a book, or a shelf, and it was absent of furniture, just the bare mahogany walls, and the light brown carpet. It was a sprawling apartment which was larger then most homes, and the trek to the one room she was located in was always a long one filled with strange thoughts, and a twinge of pity for Mistress Jane Locke Rousseau whom no one loved. I arrived at her room, the only room where the door was closed, and I stood there for a few seconds collecting myself. That room scared me because entering the room emptied the soul and my thoughts and personality were destroyed, erased from my databanks, almost like becoming a blank slate where any image will affect my personality forever.
    I knocked twice, not once, or three times, just twice because that was the only acceptable number. I opened the door and entered the brilliant room. As I walked toward the arch, the only place you can see her from my footfalls echoed loudly.
    Plit-Plat.
    Plit-Plat.
    I stopped in the center of the first half and looked at Mistress Jane Locke Rousseau sitting in the other, head turned toward the right and wearing a weak yet powerful smile.
    “Hello, how are you doing today Mistress?” I asked in a confidant and loud voice, exasperated by the empty room in the form of a loud echo.
    “I’m doing fine,” she said without altering her stagnant form. She whispered everything she said, and that statement was no different. You didn’t have to struggle to hear her because her voice still projected vibrantly across the room, and in that sad whisper it sounded far too ominous and unsettling.
    “I brought you some food.”
    “Thank you,” I put the food on the floor, and usually that was the whole visit, but today for some bewildering reason a question came to mind, a loud realization, and I asked it, “What are you looking at?”
    She didn’t say anything and I was at the door turning the knob when she responded.
    “Do you know how beautiful the world is when you have nothing else to look at?”
    I turned to look at her, taking my hat off and fumbling with it in my hands. This all made me very nervous. I tried answering her question but I couldn’t, just muttering a few stutters.
    “Come here, I want to show you something,” her gaze did not alter but she motioned her arm to indicate where she wanted me to stand.
    “Yes ma’am,” I slowly walked across the room.
    Plit-plat.
    Plit-plat.
    I stopped at the archway and breathed deeply, since no one had ever crossed the barrier between the two rooms it was a particularly scary moment, like entering a new world, and in many ways I was entering a new world. Gripping my hat in a deathly clutch I stepped within.
    On the right side of the room was a single, tiny and insignificant window buried deep in an alcove as to make sure the only way to see was to be right in front of it.
    “Come stand where I told you to stand.”
    I did and looked at the window allowing my eyes to fall off the white walls and onto the scene outside. It was a dank alley way, and the window was a few stories up giving an aerial view of it. There were some boxes strewn about in the strange shadows created by the awkward afternoon light. Most of all it was just dirty, almost like an accumulation of dust had formed over the years and I could see footprints tracked through the heavier coatings. Then a door opened and a figure stepped into the scene. He was a kid and he ran across the dusty ground and out of view leaving a few tracks behind. His mother then appeared and followed them, obviously ranting about something. I couldn’t help but to laugh at the comical scene and I continued watching. I noticed a few clothing lines hanging above the alley gleaming in the sun. A lady was pulling a few clothes in and was arguing with her husband who was cut off by the edge of the window. A police officer appeared carrying a flashlight and inspecting behind various objects. He stopped and examined some vomit behind a pile of boxes before moving out of view. I wondered what happened to cause an officer to have to start examining the scene. I wanted to go down there and find out what the kid had done, what the officer was doing, and what the couple was fighting about, but I was afraid I would miss something and I kept looking at everything. The way the dust fluttered in little wisps of wind, and that thought mad me imagine the smell of the alleyway. At first it was repulsive, then as I focused more on it I started dissecting the individual smells buried beneath. I wanted to find out more about the smells, what were the stories? Who was creating the smell? Why were they? I imagined every answer to these questions and only more came. I forced myself to stop before I got lost in something I could never see. I focused on the bricks, and how meticulous they were in their detail. My mind wandered to find the answers to questions about their little lives. I saw that everything in that alley way had a story and I wanted to know what it was. I wanted to know how every brick was made, where that cockroach lived, or where that pile of vomit behind the boxes came from. I could spend weeks looking and imagining and I wanted nothing more. Then I noticed the scene continued like a hallway, the edges of other buildings narrowing to focal point that was the ocean. It was a mere few inches long, but there was a lifetime of stories located within that small space. A sailboat floated briefly in the scene before disappearing out of view. Where was it going? Where had it come from? A red sky was sitting above it. Who was looking at it? Why were they looking at it? So many questions and mind unraveled to find the answers. I stood and I stood, wanting to know how and why about this and that, then a voice broke my train of thought.
    “Thank you for the crackers,” Mistress Jane Lock Rousseau said in a deadly whisper.
    “It’s so beautiful,” I whispered back.
    “I know, and that is why I want you to leave, go and find whatever it is you want to find.”
    I nodded, and struggling like a person lifting a bus I broke my gaze and turned to Mistress Jane Lock Rousseau, “About the crackers, ma’am. I hope you like them.”
    “I will,” her gaze had still not altered.
    I turned and left the room, then the apartment, and finally I was at my bank, a withdraw slip in hand.
    From there, and with my life savings I bought a boat, a small yet sturdy one. A boat that would take me places safely. I sailed into the distance with no destination in mind, but I made sure that I sailed into that three inch space, and from there sailed over the horizon, for now in the direction that Mistress Jane Locke Rousseau stared at. And I knew that the rest of my life was going to be a beautiful and wonderful thing.
    And as the boat sailed off the canvas that the window held Mistress Jane Locke Rousseau smiled and ate a cracker.