Just Another Experiment

One time someone found her hanging upside down from a tree. Just hanging with her rather thin knees wrapped around a branch, with long, graying pigtails brushing against the ground. Her eyes were closed, and eyebrows furrowed in an expression that was both peaceful and concentrated. The ends of her hair caught and reflected the rays of remaining daylight, creating a halo around her figure. She almost resembled a mystical pendulum, swaying hypnotically in the cool breeze. Onlooker’s first instincts were to be concerned for her.  

But Valeria Tremble was completely fine that day. And the day after. She hung from that oak for two days straight before calmly setting herself back onto the earth, shrugging and saying to herself, “well, that was simpler than I thought it’d be.”

           And she had done worse- she spent a year living in a cottage in the mountains, six months eating and drinking foods that exclusively started with the letter “C”, and one and a half years after that without uttering a single word, at least as far as anyone saw.

           Experiments, she called them, and people have long stopped trying to question her.

           So it didn’t come as a surprise to most when Valeria showed up in the convenience store one day, wearing some strange combination of yellows and oranges, long hair in two braids wrapped around her head, and set a huge deadbolt onto the cashier’s stand. It was so heavy that her thin arms practically shook as she placed it onto the conveyor strip. The awkward employee, probably still in high school and new to town, looked down at the huge metal lock, back up at Valeria, and wondered in the back of his mind what in the hell this woman was trying to lock up.

           “Would you, uh, like a bag for that?”

           Valeria shook her head as she grasped her arms around the lock to haul it back to her home. “Absolutely not- I don’t believe in plastic bags. Awful for the environment.”

           The cashier nodded meekly.

           More experienced citizens took one nosy peek at the exchange, shook their heads, and thought, here we go again.

           This time, as Valeria proclaimed to anyone who would listen, the plan was thus- to live in her bedroom without exiting for an entire year. Neighbors had two reactions- to either roll their eyes and scoff, or, for the more sensitive, to widen their eyes and say why? with the greatest of concern.

           But the response was always the same, predictable and expected. “It’s an experiment.”, she said.

           Yep, the neighbors echoed dully. Just another experiment.

           And so she proceeded. On a crisp winter night she was seen entering her house through her wooden door, which she had painted in different leaf patterns, and the experiment begun.

           Valeria proceeded upstairs, taking several trips between her room and the kitchen to fully stock up on meals and water in reusable jugs. She lined all her supplies against the walls of her room and the connected bathroom, until it looked like she had put up a wallpaper containing of cream of mushroom and Italian wedding soup labels. As casually as someone preparing for a regular day, she opened her blinds to see the outdoors beyond her window, smoothed her dress, checked her watch, and hung the deadbolt on her door.

           The first season to get through was probably the most difficult. Winter flakes passed through the town like white dandelion seeds, flurrying over every surface. Valeria sat by her window, chin resting on her hands, watching kids in pom-pommed hats go sledding and build snowmen as their parents enjoyed hot coffee on nearby benches. She noted in her journal that she almost felt wistful at this time.

           Next came spring. Valeria considered how no one probably got to experience the arrival of this season to the full extent, since they weren’t spending a year locked in a bedroom. But her window framed Mother Nature's time-lapse- she watched, mesmerized, as more and more bark showed on snowy branches with each day, and sprouts slowly straightened their stems. Eventually, Spring’s hand had swept over the whole town, melting away the snow and bringing with it warmer, dewy days.

           And on one of those dewy days came a small tremble in the peace of the town. One day, Valeria cracked open her window to let in warm air, but instead received her neighbor’s conversations floating into her room.

           Did you hear about the storm that hit by the south? Homes absolutely flooded from the ocean, and sea level’s only getting higher and higher…

           Valeria furrowed her brows, her heart aching for the people who lived there- lovely people, as she remembered.

           Next it was summer that rolled around. The sun’s glare grew brighter, dotting the people’s faces with freckles, bleaching strands of their hair ginger and strawberry blonde, and burning those who got too close.

           Valeria could have sworn she smelled smoke and opened her window to her neighbors talking once again.

           Fires raging though the towns to the west- it’s terrifying, I know, they’ve got all the firefighters there. And the drought here doesn’t help either, I’m afraid something will light up soon enough too…

           Valeria shut her window.

           With autumn the fires seemed to cease. Leaves slowly curled their edges inwards, like fingers balling into a fist, turned crisp and yellow, and twirled to the ground, riding the air in descending, arc-shaped trajectories. The sky turned cooler in tone, marbled with shades of darker gray and periwinkle where the sun managed to peek out from behind the clouds.

           One day, the arc-shaped swoops of the leaves began to speed up, and the periwinkle spots dissolved. Parents urgently called for their kids to return home as a hurricane barreled towards town. Trees desperately tried to hang on as the winds tore their roots from the ground, cables fell and house windows went dark, and water from the coast drew dangerously near. Rain drummed against roof panels, sometimes leaking in. Families desperately tried to find vessels to catch water dripping onto their heads.

           Some left in a hurry, windshield wipers working furiously. Some stayed and prayed in the dark, with nowhere to go. Valeria watched through her window. It was for the experiment, and she didn't use electricity much anyway.

           Most survived that storm. Some didn’t.

           Soon, it was a crisp winter morning. The deadbolt clicked open, and Valeria stepped out into the air. Her lilac dress trailed behind her on the ground covered in black ice- there was no snow this year.

           There had been some time to clean up, but no one could fix the look of the houses that did get flooded and destroyed from the inside. They stood in an eerie gloom, like skeletons on display, not a flicker of light inside.

           Trash blown in from dumpsters rolled down the street. Valeria looked up to see a boy who looked familiar picking up a newspaper that was flapping near his boots.

           The two looked at each other for a bit, the young cashier wondering how fate came to be that he was the one who saw this woman before her disappearance exactly a year ago, and how he’s the first to see her emerge. He wondered if staying in her bedroom for so long had deprived her of knowledge. He wondered if she knew what the universe unleashed during the past hellish year.

           Valeria took his stare to be an invitation to speak. She tucked her gray hair, now waist-length, behind her ears and said simply,

“That was even simpler than I’d thought it’d be.”