Chelsea’s Window
By Steven M Nedeau
On the stool she sat watching the other children play, her eyes changing focus between the glass of the attic window and the games of make believe unfolding in the yard below. Invisible horses the knights rode. In their armor of striped shirts, tennis shoes, and jeans, they held their arms out to grasp the imagined reigns, turning their mounts this way and that before breaking off with great speed to nowhere in particular.
Laughter carried on the breeze, spinning with the leaves in the brisk fall air. Chelsea listened, wishing she could go out and play, wishing she could laugh with the others as they danced around each other, arms outstretched or cringing away in a game of tag.
She rarely left her house anymore like she once did. Her days had become a mixture of wooden banisters and stairwells, of crowded rooms and attics, of printer ink and chalk dust. Days bled into each other. Weeks became months and months became seasons. Seasons became years. There was always a day she waited for impatiently, stomping her feet from her stool in the attic as the hallowed day neared. She waited, sticking her face to the glass to watch the leaves fall.
It was that time again. She marked the calendar in the hall. Out the door she ran to visit the homes in the neighborhood. She danced from door to door. She sang the words at every stop, her voice holding a lovely echo. The children from the yard played with her, traded candy with her, and Chelsea marveled at their costumes, envious of the craftsmanship in their design.
She played on the sidewalks until, one by one, the lights on the houses began to go out. Only then did she begin to walk home happily. In her hand hung the bag of candy she couldn’t eat. And, as always, she left the bowl of sweets in the hall underneath the sign she was not old enough to read, the sign welcoming students to the Chelsea Wilson School.