The Woman in the Window

This is not a horror.

This is a story about friendship and overcoming fear.

When fear fills your life, no one wants to be near you. You are repugnant, foul. If you try to tell someone about your fear, your stink only becomes more evident. You’re like a homeless person, unwashed and filthy, with nothing to offer but wide-mouthed rambling. Beg loud enough, someone might toss spare change your way. An act, an offering, before passing quickly by. These are some of the things they’ll tell you:

“You’ll be okay.”

“You’ll get through this.”

“It’s just nightmares.”

“It’s only dreams.”

But between the words, you can hear what they’re really saying. All they want is for you to return to the way you used to be, back when you talked like them and thought like them, enjoyed the same things they did. But tell them about real fear, the kind that tears you apart and plants unwanted things inside of you, then people disappear. You’re left alone. So alone, you realize you never before comprehended the curse of such a word as alone.

But I wasn’t utterly alone.

There was the woman in the window.