Unless the Children are Crying

In a city where it is always dark, and there is only danger outside. Remembering nothing but the knowledge of how horrible the world is, anyone would fear change.

The light from the street lamps illuminated the road, making the people walking below visible from the eighth story window where she sat. There were no cars on this road. There were never any cars on this road. She only vaguely understood what a car was, and what it looked like. What she didn't understand was why someone would want a car, why they would want to go outside. Outside was dangerous. She thought about the people walking down the street, how much danger they were in.

She watched the people. There were always people walking in the darkness of the road. It was always dark. She could not remember a time when there was light generated from something other than a fireplace. She did not have a fireplace. Instead she sat, in the shadows of shadows, watching the people walking.

There was a knock at the door. It was not unexpected, as most knocks at the door may be, but it was still surprising in the realization of the time. Every night, for it was always night, there was a knock at the door. She never answered it, but assumed whoever was knocking did not want anything as they only ever knocked once.

She had a doorbell, or she assumed she had a doorbell as she had never gone outside to check. Outside was dangerous. She wondered why someone would risk going outside everyday just to knock at her door. She wasn't anyone important. Occasionally she would get a phone call from telemarketers. It had to be telemarketers, for she knew no one who would call her. She knew no one. When a call arrived she would pick up the phone, say nothing, and listen to the breathing of the person on the other end. This was how all phone calls worked.

There was a person outside. There were always people outside. She remembered nothing other than watching the people so she thought there must have always been people. She didn't remember anything before sitting… watching. There was a person outside, but this person was different. They weren't moving. The people always moved, trying to get inside as soon as possible because of the danger. The person was staring. They were staring, and when she looked at them she could meet their eyes. She looked away. Looking into someone's eyes is rude. The people walking down the road always looked down at the cracked pavement. It was rude, but she had done it. She tried to go back to watching the people walking, but she couldn't shake the image out of her head. The person was smaller than the rest of the people, a child, if she was right in her beliefs about what children were, and their eyes were raining. Water coming from their eyes. Tears, her mind provided, they're crying. So that's what crying looks like.

She had read books that mentioned crying. She read a lot of books, or she thought she did. She knew the contents of all the books in the room where she sat, but could never remember reading them. Or touching them. She wondered if the person had read any good books, but looking back out the window she saw nothing. Well, not nothing, but a suspicious lack of crying children. Maybe she had dreamed it. That would be new, for she had never dreamed before. She had never slept before. Although she knew there was a bed in one of the rooms of the house, she doesn't remember sleeping. Ever.

The phone rang, and she tore her eyes away from the spot where the child was standing to pick it up. As she breathed into the phone line she noticed something was different. The person on the other end didn't have the rhythmic breathing that she associated with the telemarketers. Instead, the breathing was uneven; short, sudden breaths in and long shaky ones out. As if in reply to the other end her breathing sped up. The click in her ear indicated that the caller was satisfied with her answer. She did not mean to answer, but she was scared. Things were changing.

Things never changed for her. All her remembered life she spent in this room, never leaving this room, sitting and watching the people walking, the scared people because of what was outside. She was afraid, so afraid, because what was outside

      was coming in.