What Is This?

What is this?

It must be strange, seeing something for the very first time. Stranger still when you consider that the little girl should have seen it countless times before that day. What went through her young mind when she first gazed upon the night sky, unable to name the bright circle or the thousands of sparkling lights but fascinated nonetheless by their beauty?  

What is this, she thought to herself. She reached out with her tiny fingers, eager to touch the bright circle. Her longest finger was the first to touch the cold, invisible wall of glass – another first experience for the girl, as she had never seen a window in her four years of life. 

What is this, she wondered? It’s here, but not here. Does Daddy know about this see-through wall?

The girl couldn’t ask her father if he knew about the see-through wall, though. She’d found it in one of the two rooms she was never supposed to enter, the room she referred as the upstairs room. She’d never heard it called an attic before; to her, it was just a forbidden room that Daddy entered by climbing the steps that went into the ceiling. She shouldn’t have entered the upstairs room, but she’d grown bored with the rooms that she was allowed to explore. With nothing new to discover in the house, the girl waited until Daddy wouldn’t hear her and crept up the creaking steps to the attic.

She felt along the edges of the glass panes, trying to find the magic that allowed her to see through the wall. She was sure something in the window’s frame made it see-through. Upon inspection, she was disappointed to find that the frame was just an ordinary frame, the same as the frames in the other rooms. She was confused: why was she able to see through this wall when the others looked like regular wooden walls? 

She had no way of knowing that she’d stumbled across the one window her father didn’t bother boarding up more than three years ago. Or that the sole reason the attic was forbidden was because of the very window she now looked through. Unbeknownst to her, the girl had just found the one and only way to view the outside world from within the prison Daddy created for her when she was an infant.

The girl was increasingly intrigued by the see-through wall; what other mysteries could it hold? She tapped three times on the glass with her little pointer finger. 

*Tap*

*Tap*

*Tap*

She liked the sound; it was different than the sounds made by all the other things in the house. She tapped again, this time giggling as the sound lingered for a moment. She desperately wanted to tap louder to see if the sound would last even longer, similar to the butterknife’s ring when she tapped it on the counter… but doing so risked waking Daddy. 

She was sure that Daddy would stay asleep if she remained quiet. He’d been drinking that day (he told her it was his “Daddy juice”), and she knew it made him harder to wake up. While she didn’t like how mean he got when he drank, she did like when Daddy fell asleep afterwards. It gave her more freedom to play and make noise. 

But she had to be careful not to make so much noise that it woke him. The one time she did, he stomped into her room and punished her before she even had time to say, “I’m sorry Daddy”. Punishments always involved his fists and, with how many punishments she endured that night, she was cautious never to risk waking him again.

She decided to wait until Daddy went through the other forbidden door, the one in the living room; then, she could tap on the invisible wall again. Louder, much louder. She could be as loud as she wanted when Daddy went through that door. 

The girl didn’t realize that the door led outside; she only knew that he stayed for a long time when he went through it. In fact, she wasn’t aware that there was an “outside”; in her mind, the entire universe existed within eight rooms: the two bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen, living room, upstairs room, and the secret room that existed beyond the forbidden front door. That’s why the night sky appeared so magical: the only reality she’d ever known was within the grimy, off-white walls of a condemned house. As such, the twinkling of a thousand stars against a clear night sky could only exist in the realm of magic and imagination.

What is this, she wondered?  How is this room so big? How did the walls get so sparkly? It’s so pretty she thought as she giggled, putting her hand over her mouth to lessen the noise. She wanted so badly to show Daddy so he could be amazed too, but she knew that she would likely get punished for going up the steps into the ceiling. However, despite being so young, the girl picked up on things very quickly; she knew if she waited until a day when Daddy smiled as she told him about all the things she found that day, she could tell him about the sparkles and maybe not get punished. 

For now, though, it was bedtime. The lack of windows in the house (other than the attic window she’d just discovered) meant the girl had no concept of nighttime or daytime. She only knew to sleep when Daddy slept, and she’d already stayed up longer than she was supposed after he fell asleep in his chair. She climbed down the stairs carefully, making sure to wait until each step stopped creaking before taking the next one, and rushed to her room to crawl under her blankie on the floor.

*****

When she awoke, Daddy was already gone. That was normal; most days he was gone by the time she crawled out from under her blankie. She wondered again what he was doing for so long in the secret room beyond the door.

She went to the kitchen and opened the cabinet looking for food. Her tummy was extra grumbly; she really hoped Daddy remembered to leave food for her before he disappeared behind the forbidden door. She found a carrot and a half-eaten roll she’d saved from the day before; while carrots weren’t her favorite, she was happy to give her tummy something to quiet it down. She was also excited because, with Daddy gone for a long time, she could watch the sparkles when she finished eating. 

After finishing the other half of the roll and two bites of the carrot, she ran as fast as she could up to the stairs leading up to the attic. She rushed to the window, excited to see the sparkles. As she approached the window, she became quite confused.

Wait… why is it all different now? Where are the sparkles?

Instead of thousands of lights, she saw what she could only describe as a big blue wall with white splotches. The room – as she believed outside to be just another room –had a big green floor whereas it was a black floor before she went to bed. Instead of the soft light from the big circle, harsh light came from what the circle now, causing her to recoil and cover her eyes with her tiny hand to shield them from the luminous assault.

After her eyes grew accustomed to the brightness, she leaned forward and pressed her face against the window. She expected the magic see-through wall to have the same cool touch from the night before; to her surprise, the wall was warm – quite warm, in fact. She couldn’t understand how everything was so different. Maybe the sparkly lights were just a dream she thought with a hint of sadness. She missed them already.

Still, the illuminated yard provided a myriad of new and exciting things to study. Pressing her forehead and nose against the clear pane, the girl tried to get as close as possible so she could see everything. 

There are SO many new things!

There was the grass; in her attempt to understand what it was, she named it the Big Lettuce Carpet. The old picket fence became Brown Carrot People; she thought they looked funny, like carrots standing next to each other. The sky became the Big Blue Wall because she couldn’t think of a funny name for it – she just called it as she saw it.

She was amazed at everything and took time to memorize every detail. She really wanted to tell Daddy about how wonderful the big room was; she couldn’t wait for a happy day with him to tell him about all the Lettuce Carpet she found, or how the Carrot People stood up so perfectly straight. She realized that she didn’t know if the room would change again before then.

I hope the sparkles come back so I can show Daddy.

As she studied the room, she traced her little finger along the window’s surface, pointing at all the little things she observed. As she did, she noticed something moving in the distance. A police cruiser – or as she described it in her mind, a rollie thing with flashy lights – was fast approaching down the dirt road leading to the house. The rollie thing left a big, brown smoke cloud behind, and the girl was fascinated by how the smoke seemed to follow it as it moved. She traced its path with her finger, giggling as the car and its pursuing cloud grew bigger. Then, she noticed another car, and another. Each of them had flashy lights on top and had smoke clouds following them too. 

So many new things. The girl couldn’t contain her giggles. She never got to see new things; this magic invisible wall and the big room were the greatest things ever. There was so much out there, she could stay up here for days just watching the new room.

She began to hear something, low at first, but gradually getting louder as the cars got closer. She’d never heard sirens, and she wondered if the sounds were coming from the rollie things. Fascinated, she tried to copy the sounds as best she could. 

“WhoooOOOOP! Whoop whoop whoop WHOOOP!”

She wasn’t doing a very good job, but she was having a lot of fun trying. And since she didn’t have to worry about waking Daddy, she could be as loud as she wanted. This is the best day EVER, she thought to herself as the sirens grew louder and louder.

The three cars came to a stop near the house, and the noises stopped. The girl watched with amazement as people got out of the rollie things - people other than Daddy. She didn’t know that there were people other than her father in the world. She felt excited – but also a hint of fear as she pondered who the people in the big room were. 

Out of each car stepped a person in all black clothes and a shiny star on their chest. The girl had no way of knowing they were police officers, nor could she have guessed why they were at her house. To her, they all looked the same in their matching uniforms; the only person who didn’t look the same was a lady who stepped out of the last car.  (The girl noticed that she came through a door that was on the other side of the rollie thing, yet another marvel on a marvelous day.)

The girl noticed that the lady looked a lot like her. She’d never met another girl before, though truthfully, she’d never met anyone other than Daddy. A part of her was nervous, scared even, at the sight of strange people; another part wanted more than anything to meet the new lady and tell her how pretty she looked, that she loved her dress, and how she wanted one just like it.

The girl looked down at her own dress and realized how tattered and dirty it was when compared to the lady’s dress. She wanted to be pretty like the lady and wear a nice dress. She rubbed the front of her dress with her hands, trying to get the dirt off. It’s not working she thought as she rubbed faster and faster.

Tears began to well in the girl’s eyes as she felt embarrassed for the first time in her life. She wondered if Daddy could help her clean her dress, maybe even fix the parts that were tearing apart. When he came back from the secret room later, she would ask him to help her.

The girl crouched down a bit so that her dress wasn’t visible through the window. She looked for the lady and found her talking with one of the men in black near the last car. Someone else caught her eye as well, someone not dressed in black who was being helped out of the back of the first car. The man stood up, hands behind his back, and looked towards the house. The girl recognized Daddy… right as he looked up at the only remaining window in the house. 

Seeing Daddy look at her, the girl panicked, terrified that she’d been caught in the upstairs room. She was going to be in so much trouble. She ran as fast as she could to the stairs, taking her time to get down each step so she didn’t fall, then running to her room to hide. 

The only options for hiding places in her room were her blankie on the floor and the pile of her other dresses (as well as her old teddy bear) in the corner. She knew better than to hide under her blankie; she tried that once with Daddy and it didn’t fool him at all. (He didn’t even move the blankie when he punished her.)

She ran to the corner and pulled the dresses on top of her, holding her teddy bear tightly as she hoped that maybe the lady in the dress would tell Daddy that it was ok for her to be in the upstairs room. She waited breathlessly, heart beating through her little chest, terrified of how bad Daddy’s punishment was going to be.

The forbidden door opened, and the girl knew that Daddy was coming to punish her. Only, the next thing she heard wasn’t Daddy’s angry voice.

“Clara! Clara baby, are you in there?”

No, it wasn’t Daddy’s voice, or even a voice that sounded like Daddy’s at all. The only voice the girl had heard in her life was her father’s, so she had no way of knowing that it was a woman’s voice. 

Did Daddy tell them my name? Why isn’t he coming back from the big room too?

“Clara, my beautiful baby girl, Mommy has been looking for you for so long!”

 The girl didn’t understand. Where’s Daddy? Is he mad at me? And what’s a mommy? Is that like a Daddy?

She heard footsteps as they entered the hallway. She knew that Daddy would know where she was hiding, he always knew where to find her. But instead of hearing the steps lead to her room, she heard the creak of the attic steps as the group of strange people went into the upstairs room to look for her. 

They think I’m in the upstairs room. Maybe they can tell Daddy that I just disappeared. I don’t want to be punished again…

 “Clara! Where are you baby?”

She tried to squeeze herself under her dresses a bit more, hoping that they would give up after looking for her in the upstairs room. When she heard the creaking steps, she hoped the footsteps would move away – but they started immediately towards her room. One of the people in black clothes walked into her room and looked first at the blankie lying in the middle of her floor. (She was glad that she knew not to hide there.) Then, her heart sank as he turned to look directly at her. When his eyes met hers, he turned his head back to the hallway and shouted “she’s in here”. 

“No no, please! I’m sorry for going into the upstairs room and looking through the see-through wall! I promise I won’t do it again! I promise! Please don’t punish me.” 

“Shh shh shh, it’s alright Clara. We’re here to help. Your father won't hurt you anymore.”

This voice was also much different than Daddy’s; it was calmer – he wasn’t shouting, and he wasn’t angry at her. She was confused; wasn’t she going to be punished? Another rush of footsteps towards her room interrupted her thoughts; she turned her head towards the wall to try to hide her face, afraid of what would happen when Daddy finally found her.

“Clara? CLARA!! Oh my god, my baby!”

The lady in the dress ran up and grabbed the girl, wrapping her in a tight embrace. At first, the girl tried to pull away, terrified. She expected to feel the first sting of punishment as the woman collapsed and grabbed her… but it never came. The woman just kept squeezing.

When the girl realized she wasn’t being punished, she thought to herself, what is this? She’s hugging me so much... Daddy never hugs me so much. 

Slowly, she relaxed as the lady kept a tight grip around her, rocking the girl back and forth. Is she crying Clara wondered? She is… she’s got to be scared too.

I know what she needs…

She needs a hug.