Perfect Comfort

Dark clouds fog over the grey sheet of sky, cascading the world in shadow in the middle of the day. Nature shakes and small entities are thrown off balance by a wind that knows no restraint.

The end of Autumn always brings about this sentiment of the world closing and cracking open into a melancholic chapter of life, Aspen finds. The leaves have all fallen, dissolving into the roots of civilisation, to be called upon once more when this empty page of the Earth’s cycle has ended. Trees are bare and skinny; branches stand at awkward ends with no sustenance on their spindly structure. An animated stillness is dragged into the foyer by winter as the local wildlife go into hibernation. The only sound Aspen could parse through the thick material of his double-glazed window was a flowing wind that slides through the crevices of flora like water pushing through loose cracks.

The young boy presses a slender hand against the glass window and feels it dampen with condensation. His bodily warmth is sapped away into the atmosphere - his sole connection to the world beyond his sanctuary of brick and stone and of perfect comfort.

He’s never known hunger, never known physical unease, and has never known what it feels like for this cold sensation in his right hand to spread over his entire body. All he knows is perfect comfort and a perfect life. What more could he possibly ask for? He has all the books and toys to play with to his heart's content. His room is spacious and cosy. Where is the need to see more, to feel more beyond his steel sanctuary if it meant losing this perfect comfort that has been with him for as long as he could remember?

He supposed, however, the one mistake the men in black left him when they told him he could never leave this room, was to leave him with the window. It looks out over a courtyard of which he doesn’t know who it belongs to. From here, he saw throughout his thirteen years of life the way things change over time. New trees grow, hedges flourish and flowers die when it's time. A wonderland so far out of reach when it was right on his doorstep.

He’s ready to call it a day. It’s only noon but time means nothing when there’s no purpose aside from staying in this room. The maid of no name will surely scold him for breaking routine when she comes to deliver his evening meal. But this is what winter does to him. There’s less to see that’s new from his window and with it, the motivation to stick to a routine that has bored him for years.

He’s ready to slip underneath the covers until he sees it. That small parse in the thick clouds. Loosely defined light rays break through the gloomy barrier. And with it, draws from the sky a new phenomenon - an experience that Aspen could only witness from a double-glazed window.

Flakes of ice drift from the sky. Piece by piece, unorganised clutter by clutter that dance along the relentless wind, pouring down at an angle. Until a rapid fire of these thin slices of white fall in quick succession. Aspen’s eyes widen at the realisation. His heart drums a little faster at the new earthly wonder.

Snow.

He’s only learnt about this feature of the sky from the pages of children’s novels. He had only seen it from those books’ illustrations. He didn’t even know it could snow in this area. He had resigned the idea of ever witnessing it in his lifetime a long time ago, like the grating roughness of sand on a beach or the vast emptiness of a never-ending ocean.

He pushes his face against the glass, his nose squishing against the texture. His eyes dart left and right, trying to keep track of each snowfall, entranced by this new aspect of the world. The cold saps away his warmth, his fingers going numb, his breath visible against the glass.

It is the dissipation of his comfort, but it mesmerises him. In his sanctuary, he has perfect comfort but this mere gateway to the outside world is taking that away. He realises there that he’s missing something. Something his perfect comfort can’t cater to.

Is it the knowledge of why he must remain here and never leave? Is it the range of emotions he knows he’s capable of but can’t tap into it? Or rather, is it the experience of what it means to not be in complete comfort, yet still be able to admire what it means to be a part of this world. His world that he partially owns too.

What is this feeling of longing? Where is it coming from? Why does everything suddenly not feel like enough? These are thoughts that buzz through Aspen’s mind like an insect infestation.

He needs to know what it’s like to not be in his sanctuary, to not be in total comfort.

He doesn’t know how long he’s there, attached warm body to cold glass. Minutes, possibly hours.

He is snapped out of his trance when the bell rings signalling the time for the evening meal. He peels himself off the window like stripping a banana peel. A sudden dread sinks his heart as the warmth of his sanctuary replaces the bittersweet coldness from the window.

Clicking sounds and then a thick clunk as the flap on the bottom of his door unlocks. The maid on the other side calls out to him. Tells him what time it is in a bored voice.

He’s never seen her face - a thought that occurs to him as thin hands adorned with deep creases push a tray of cottage pie through the flap. He has no idea what expression this maid makes whenever she delivers him food.

Does she ever stop and wonder why she does this? Why she follows this routine? She’s on the other side. She’s seen the world. She’s probably seen all there is to see in this world. She doesn’t need to think about routine. She doesn’t need to think at all like Aspen doesn’t either.

Like how he doesn’t think when he pushes the flap open on his hand and dives through the slim rectangular hole startling the woman on the other side. He treads maladroitly over the food, his knees squashing the pie into a mash as he crawls through.

She shrieks, high-pitched and crisp, shocks Aspen’s ears but he keeps going.

The woman on the other side has even more creases on her face than on her hands, her eyes wide with bewilderment. A new experience. He’s never seen someone like her before or an expression like that in real life. It’s not enough. He needs to keep going.

He swerves against the maid, knocking her flat on her behind. His bare feet touch the marble flooring and it's uncomfortable, it pushes against his heels. He almost slips as he runs down a hallway he’s never seen, invigored with the burning desire for more sensations of this world that has been wrongfully hidden from him. From this world that he’s never been a part of.

Along a narrow hallway, he speeds past the most detailed illustrations on the walls he has ever seen of stern-looking men and women who share the same ashy blonde tint of Aspen’s hair. His eyes dance along the muted use of colours but he can’t let himself get distracted. He focuses on the abrupt dip at the end of the hallway. A staircase?

His chest hurts and his body stings in weird places when he finally reaches it - his breath rapid and heavy. A spiral staircase swerves down into an illuminated abyss. Aspen doesn’t have time to be scared.

He jumps down them three at a time, a violent shock rising from his cold aching feet at the sudden impact. Has he ever jumped before in his life? Has he ever felt so tired but not in a sleepy way? It’s so much fun to be in this much discomfort.

When there are no more stairs to climb down, he searches left and right. Another hallway but much wider greets him with an air of mystery. Doors upon doors, all black, all adorned with intricate designs and none of them indicate which way would lead him to what he’s longing for.

He slams into the first few before remembering what door handles are. None of them budge until the one at the far end.

He falls into a white smoky room and a pungent smell of cottage pie attacks his nostrils. Men in funny white hats stare at him, surrounded by blue fire on countertops. Is fire meant to be blue?

He doesn’t stop to wonder any longer. The men in black will be after him soon. He takes advantage of their surprised stances and inelegantly slides between men of various builds, one so round and large, Aspen wonders how he could still be standing.

They call out for him in angry grunts and demand he stop but Aspen is tunnelling to the door at the far end. His legs couldn’t stop even if he demanded them to.

He heaves and puffs into the next room; a huge piece of empty space he never could imagine would be under one roof. A crystal tree that illuminates in flawlessly spaced stars hangs upside down from the tall ceiling. He hears footsteps from all around, echoing off marble walls. They are orderly, determined, and deadly.

They’re coming for him.

He glimpses the wide doors at the far right, almost tall enough to reach the ceiling with glass frames of various colours.

Is that his final gateway?

As he approaches them, the cold is approaching him too, stealing away the comfortable warmth in his small body. He reaches for the handle and forces his entire weight and he drags them open. He’s out of breath. His chest hurts. His legs ache but he keeps pushing until he can see a seal of white shine into the large room.

The light blinds him and a malicious cold snap at his frail body, tearing his clothes without tearing fabric, punctuating his skin without drawing blood. The cold air his lungs desperately breathe in are like blunt spikes in his chest.

It hurts. Everything hurts. His skin that trembles. His feet that burn. His eyes that sting. But he refuses to close them. He refuses to shield away.

He edges closer and closer into the light and off the marble platform. A sharp agony concaves his feet. It’s so cold. It’s so horrible. But it feels wonderful.

His eyes adapt to the sunlight but the wind blowing snow in his face makes it hard to see.

It’s foggy. He can’t see anything beyond a grey clearing of dancing snow that reaches his ankles.

He’s here. He’s in the outside world. He’s in his world.

He dashes out. The snow is even more vicious than what he imagined. His feet sink into the white fluff and touch something wet that is crumbly yet firm.

He’s still running, his arms out wide to greet the universe, his face stretched to the sky.

The sunlight is little, yet it's blinding and is the sole source of warmth that he feels frolicking on his face.

He gallops, he dances. He doesn’t know what this is or where he is. He’s so far out, that he no longer sees the grand doors. He couldn’t go back even if he wanted to.

He slips and bruises a knee. A red liquid seeps out of a cut and stains the white snow.

It hurts. It’s so painful. It’s so dreadful.

He laughs.

Tears sting his cold eyes and warm up his cheeks. It’s all so beautiful. He can’t see much but he feels everything. The adrenaline punches through his arms and legs and a lightness envelops his chest. With each cackle from his hoarse throat, perfect comfort leaves his body to be replaced with utter fulfilment. He is the world, and the world is his.

Then the footsteps come once more.

He hears them over the threatening howl of the wind. Perfectly determined to bring him back to his perfect sanctuary. He’s panicking. On his newfound high, he frantically searches the winter land.

He screams when he feels thick gloved hands grab his arms. They transpire warmth and he snaps away from it, his body convulsing violently while he screams.

No more comfort. No more utter contentment. No more warmth.

He thrashes as they drag him away. His limited strength does nothing against the men in black. Snowflakes fall into his open mouth, melting on his tongue and turning his jaw to ice. He can barely breathe as he screams for his future.

They drag him away from his world, from what they took from him.

He’ll return again. They can’t contain him now that he knows what it’s like.

He won’t stop until the world is his once more and he no longer knows what it means to be in perfect comfort.