Crooked Windows

The passage seemed dark. Every window that wasn’t broken was crooked or stuck, half opened or half closed, the panes ready to pop at the slightest movement in the soft earth that was the foundation of the place where her dreams began. Like the house, she felt like she was sinking. It wasn’t much of a stretch to believe the ground might just open one afternoon and swallow the whole place up. And with it it would take every memory, good and bad, new and old, down with it, to be forgotten forever. She checked carefully for shards of glass, threw her sweater down over the sill, then lifted herself up on over into the cavernous room. Years came back to her in an instant and she was a child again. The room wasn’t empty, but full of life. There was laughter. There was light. For the first time in a long time a he wasn't alone. The wood floors creaked beneath her feet and she felt them bow as she shifted her weight ever so slightly from one foot to the other, finding her balance. She was back to the present and the earth whispered up to her through the cracks in the floor, “Do you want me to take you away?,” she straightened up and said “I’m not ready for you yet.”
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