The Window Is Open

It was the window.

Every month, it was was the window.

It came as regularly as the full moon. There before you knew it, fading away before you could fully grasp its presence.

It had been open for one day and she sat on the floor of the kitchen, curled up in the corner, utterly broken.

There was so much pain every time the window opened. Emotional. Physical. Pain that soaked into the marrow of every bone and filled her soul.

So much pain and guilt and shame and regret. So much reflecting over all the wrong decisions.

Weren't they all wrong decisions, in some way? Otherwise why would the window have opened, why would it torture her, month after month?

She sat, broken in the corner. Was she too weak mentally? Physically? She should be able to get up and close the window. It was just a window.

She didn't move from her corner.

The window would remain open for another day. Two if she had been particularly bad.

Obviously she had been bad, in this life or another. It had to be karma. What other explanation could there be?

She cried out to a god she wasn't even sure existed. Once she had been certain. Not anymore.

Slowly the pain would ebb. Just a bit. Just enough for her to crawl out of the kitchen, away from the window.

It was still open. There was no way she could shut it, not right now. It would remain open for another day, at least. But right now she could crawl away, a little bit further away.