Don't Look Back

Don’t look. 

Nothing else was written on the note Jesse found taped to the shuttered window in his attic. The window itself was hidden behind a series of crooked planks that had been nailed to the wall with the carpentry skill of a toddler. The note was a mess of scribbles so chaotic, that it took a solid ten minutes before Jesse could decipher the cryptic warning. It is a warning, isn’t it? He took a step back from the window. The wood panels on the floor creaked as if they were confirming his suspicions with a language of their own. Jesse took their advice and ran back downstairs into the kitchen of his new home. 

A week ago, when the leaves started shedding their green skin for the various shades of a flickering candle, Jesse had moved upstate. He’d lived in the city before, but staying there had become a burden of sorts since Maye left. It felt like walking around with an infected cut on his toe—each step hurt more and more, throbbing until it claimed all of his senses. The blocks that had been a joy to stroll down felt more like a prison he had to endure. The look of pity his friends offered his way only rubbed salt, lemon, and battery acid into his open wounds.

It was too much. Simply too much. 

He picked the first house he found in the first place he found; Livingston Manor. It was a quiet town, the kind you find upstate. It had one main road with stores for all your general needs and a diner that served a solid, greasy egg and cheese. Otherwise, it was just a bunch of homes littered throughout the woods. And being two hours away from the city on a traffic-less day, Livingston Manor provided him with a safe haven to get back to being the old Jesse. The Jesse that had known how to laugh. How to join a conversation without bringing a dark, stinking cloud above everyone else’s heads. He wanted to find the Jesse that everyone liked. The Jesse that Maye had loved.  

THAT JESSE IS LONG GONE.   

Are you sure?

YES. DEAD AND GONE. NOW, BACK TO THE WINDOW.

Okay. 

Like the rest of the house—aside from the attic—the kitchen was newly renovated. Rays from the sun reflected off granite countertops, finding their way through the window-heavy wall facing his backyard. Through those panes, he saw naught but rows of trees that stretched far back until the overwhelming darkness of the Adirondack woods swallowed them up. Everything was calm and quiet. Solitude was what Jesse sought, and he had found it. At first, it felt liberating, finally being left alone. But the note on the window changed things.  

Now, he held the piece of paper in a trembling hand. The shaking only gave the scribbled words a more frantic appearance, but the message was the same: Don’t look. He hadn’t. But why not? What could be so bad about a window? Jesse put the note in his pocket and opened the door to his backyard. He walked out a good fifty feet on the manicured lawn that led up to the tree line and turned around. His sunken brown eyes worked their way up from the ground floor to the extended attic that jutted out the top of his house like a loose Jenga piece. Architecturally speaking, it was an odd choice. Aesthetically speaking, it was disturbingly ugly...which is most likely why Jesse could afford the home in the first place. He hadn’t minded the eye-sore when he bought the house, but now it felt wrong. Wrong in ways that his mind couldn’t quite stitch together. But then he saw it...or rather, didn’t see. 

There was no window in the attic.

Grey wood occupied the spot where the shuttered window ought to have been. If there had been any construction done to cover it up, Jesse hadn’t a clue, but from the level of fading on the paint, it certainly seemed like it had always been this way. 

What the hell? 

After a near sprint back inside and up to the Attic, Jesse was sweating through his shirt. His breathing was labored, but you’d need a stethoscope to hear the slight wheezing in his lungs. The haphazardly nailed together crooked planks were still in front of what Jesse had assumed was a window. What else could it be? He reached in his pocket and rubbed at the crumpled-up note. 

Don’t look. 

The words rang through his head once again as he rolled the note around his palm, but then he noticed something cold in his other hand. Cold and heavy. Jesse looked down to see that he had been carrying a crowbar. The one he’d brought with him to unbox the cutlery his parents had gotten him when he and Maye moved in together years ago. Did I grab it on my way upstairs? He tried to remember, but the memories were tiny and distant as if he was gazing at them through the wrong side of a binocular.

Don’t look. 

That’s what the note had said, but he didn’t care anymore. The crowbar had already found itself wedged between two particularly rotted planks. They gave way with a modest tug, and the wood splintered out across the attic floor. Something shimmered from the gap between the planks, but he didn’t stop to look until every last plank from ripped free from the chains of shoddy carpentry. Sweating even more now, Jesse stepped back and looked at what the note had told him not to.

It was a window. A window with a clear view of his backyard.

“How...” he mumbled, backpedaling, nearly tripping over a storage box. “How is that possible?”

Jesse was staring at the spot of his backyard where he had just been minutes ago, confirming that this very window didn’t exist. But it did. He was looking right through its surprisingly clean glass panes. Did I just not see it? Occam’s Razor, it has to be that simple. Jesse headed down the stairs and outside. The sun was at its peak now, and Jesse’s shirt began to darken with the seeping of more sweat. His perspiration only increased when he looked up at the attic. Once again, there was no window in sight. Not even a faint outline of a frame. Just a wall, nothing else. 

“Well, fuck.”

The next day crept in slowly, as sleep proved to be as elusive as the answers to the window. But Jesse had a plan, at least the foundation of one. After a quick trip into town to purchase a tripod, Jesse brought it up to the attic and set it down in front of the window. The camera he owned fit perfectly onto the stand, and with a few clicks, it was set to an auto-timer to start recording in precisely two minutes. Once it was ready to go, Jesse walked briskly to the spot in his backyard that the window faced. Hands in his pockets, Jesse stood there awkwardly, waiting for the timer to go off. 

Beep!

The watch on his wrist buzzed, and Jesse took a deep breath before clicking again. Two more minutes, then we find out what the hell is going on. A wave of relief rippled through Jesse. Something in his gut was telling him that he’d outsmarted whatever trick was being pulled on him. Silence filled the woods of Livingston Manor as he waited. Tick, tock. It always seems like time slows down when we wish it didn’t but blurs past us during the moments we never want to let go. As if the universe itself had a personal vendetta against those who lived within its linear infinity. Finally, before the wait drove Jesse crazy, the watch beeped again. 

“Thank god,” he said to the wind. Leaves bristled with a reply as a breeze tickled them, but Jesse was already halfway to the attic. 

The camera was where he left it, pointed at the window that shouldn’t exist. Floorboards creaked as he gingerly walked toward the Nikon. It was still recording, so he stopped it and unclipped it from the tripod with the care of a museum worker unloading King Tut’s tomb. With the camera in hand, Jesse went back downstairs. Something about watching the film in the attic made his skin crawl sideways. The kitchen felt safer. 

WATCH IT.

Are you sure? 

YES. 

It seems...wrong. 

WEAK WORDS FROM A WEAK MAN. 

Come on now, I…

WATCH THE TAPE.

Okay.  

Jesse pressed play. Was there ever a chance he wouldn’t? The video started as expected; Jesse was standing in the backyard with his hands in his pockets, looking up at the window. A few seconds passed before something...strange happened. The Jesse in the video took his hands out and waved, but not at the window. This on-screen Jesse was now looking off to the left and waving to someone out of frame.

What...what is this?

Before the thought finished, a second person walked over to greet Jesse. A figure that made his heart hurt something fierce. She walked as if it were a dance, all grace, and long, carefree steps. Her white summer dress wriggled to the tune of the wind. Auburn hair that reminded him of every Fall color dropped down below her shoulders. Jesse could almost smell her lavender shampoo through the screen. The Jesse in the video reached out his hand, and the woman took it. She gently rubbed her thumb on his knuckles. The two embraced, and the Jesse watching the video felt the organs in his body drop. When the pair on the screen turned to look up at the camera, Jesse saw Maye’s face clearly for the first time in a year. Tears started to drop, too. 

This can’t be real…

WHY NOT? IT'S WHAT YOU WANT. 

But it can’t be real.

AM I REAL?

...Yes.

THEN WHY CAN'T THIS BE? 

What should I do?

YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER.

It was true. He did.

Jesse raced back up to the attic, with the video still playing. He nearly tripped up the stairs as it was almost impossible to stop looking at Maye. She glowed through the screen. A picture of perfection. His perfection. His missing piece. He put the camera back on the tripod in front of the window but made sure to save the video first. Then, he set a new timer; this one was for an entire hour. He rushed back outside and found his spot in the yard. Already, the grass was dying where he’d been standing, but he didn’t care. It was where he’d stand now. Two minutes passed by, and Jesse’s watch buzzed. He smiled at the camera.

GOOD.