The Window Seat
With this story I started with the ending and tried to work out how it all happened. Not a recommended way to write a short story but I like to think that it worked for me here.
This is my special place. This seat, by the window, in the prison cell that I now call home, is where I come to think. And it’s where I come to be alone. And, sometimes, if I try very hard, as I look out of the window, I can see a different view – something that isn’t really there.
They’re going to kill me in the morning. They’re going to take me out into the yard and make me kneel down in the sand. Then they’ll tie a blindfold over my eyes. And finally, there will be a loud noise – something like gunfire. And then, I’ll be dead.
I’m not scared though. Oh sure, I’ll probably be scared in the morning. I’ll probably be blubbering and crying and begging and pleading for my life. Like all the others. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen it many times. But, for now at least, I’m not scared. I’m using what little time I have left. I’m using it the best I can. And that’s why I’m sitting here, on this seat, by the window in the cell of the prison that I have learned to call home.
And, as I look out of the window, if I try really hard, instead of the dying city lying before me, I see green hills sweeping down to a swelling creek.
And, in the distance, a cottage with smoke coming out of the chimney. And a woman and a girl, working in the garden. A place that I once used to call home.
I miss my wife and I miss my daughter. I think of them all the time and it hurts me that I’ll never see them again. it hurts me that I’ll never again be able to hold them close and tell them how much I love them. I can’t tell you just how much that hurts me.
But there are those times, the bad times, when I sit on this seat by the window and, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t make the city go away.
And it’s during these dark, dark times that I can’t help but think about how it all went so wrong.
The Window Seat is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads
