Me and Momma live in a house. The house is big, with walls and floors and ceilings. Momma says all houses have walls, floors and ceilings, but I don’t believe her. I think we are special, and have a special house. There is one more thing in the house that makes it truly special. The window.

  The window is a square piece of what Momma calls “glass” stuck inside of the biggest wall in the house. Glass is what Momma calls “transparent”, just like air. If you look at “glass”, you are able to see through it and at what lies beyond.

  Everyday I look through the glass window. I see nothing but gray. Momma says that the world outside the house is black and “burnt”, yet all I see is gray.

  Momma is wrong.

  Momma says to never leave the house, because outside “hurts”.

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  Momma is wrong.

  I see through the window gray and more gray, and sometimes, I see gray “things”.

  The gray things are very pretty. They spin and dance and fly all around.

  I want to touch the gray things.

  I feel their skin, grasp their bones, and mold their flesh.

  Everyday I think of the gray things.

  What if they came into the house? What if Momma saw them? Would she feel “happy”?

  Today, as I look through the window at the gray things, I have an idea.

  Why not just break the window?

  I raise my hand and push it against the glass of the window. It doesn’t break. I push harder. It still doesn’t break.

  I push harder, harder, harder, harder!

  I hear a “crack”, and then a “shatter”!

  The grass broke!

  I jump through the window and into the gray.

  I see them! The gray things! They are dancing and flowing and flying and growing!

  They are as pretty as “stars”.

  I feel them thrumming, humming, holding, choking, grasping, and devouring.

  I feel myself “dying”.

  They are as pretty as “stars.”