You can’t help it.

Your curiosity will never be satisfied until you know.

How did it happen ?

Why now of all times?

IT'S SO FRUSTRATING !!!

These swarming thoughts never leave your head, driving you crazy. But who would have thought that one day, Google won't have the answers?

You look out of your living room’s window. It's 9 am. How can it be so bright when all of this is happening? And how can the birds chirp happily at a time like this?

But of course. They don't even know . Even if they did, they would hardly care. It's not like their species are dying every day. Every hour. Every second.

You look at your barren street. No soul in sight. How can you ever get used to this emptiness? You have never thought a day would come where you would miss the screaming children who played there every day. It almost looks like they were never there. It almost feels like you're the last human alive.

You sigh, tearing your gaze away from the ghostly street and head towards the kitchen. You’re gonna run out of food soon. Dear God! Then, you'll either have to eat tinned food…or go out. Your heart quickens at the thought and it takes all your might to get an egg out of the fridge.

Hah, Look at you now. It's almost too funny. A month ago you would’ve had a lavish breakfast - french toast, pancakes, and the like. Now you're having one boiled egg. Now you're starving. Now you're alone. Hah.

You eat silently, contemplating life. What would your parents be doing now? You can't help but wonder, what does one do when the world is on the brink of collapse? You can't help but think of all those people who are losing their loved ones when you can't even check up on your own. Is there a difference?

What if….?

NO !

You have to think positively. You know this will end. All of this is gonna be over soon. You'll wake up and realise it was all a big bad dream or worse yet…. STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT.

MAKE IT STOP !!!

……………………………………………………………………………………………………....

What?

You groggily lift up your head from the couch. When did you fall asleep ? You check the time. It's 6 pm. Already ? You shake your head, hoping to clear it. No such luck.

As you are about to stand up…

You hear it.

A scratching sound. Coming from the front door.

Your blood runs cold. Your heart beats wildly and you feel like you're drowning in adrenaline. You run and grab your baseball bat, and listen.

“Meow”

What? A cat? How is that even possible?

You sigh in relief but keep your guard up. Slowly, you inch closer and look through the peephole. How in God’s name did a cat appear out of nowhere? You squint trying to make out its features in the darkness when realisation dawns on you.

That dumb cat. What in THE WORLD is it doing here? You've let it out a week ago ! You rush to the door, hoping it can hear you.

“GO AWAY ”, you scream

The scratching intensifies. “ I said GO AWAY !! Get out of here you filthy animal ! Are you trying to KILL me ? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT ? ”

The cat purrs, but you can feel it retreat slowly. You rush to the window and check, just in case. Surely enough, you see your beloved cat hanging its head and walking away into the darkness, until it consumes it completely. Just like everything else.

You cover your face with your hands and sob. Once. Twice. Like a dam has broken, everything pours out. How did life become like this? The only thing keeping you in touch with the world is...

A window. Wood and glass. HAHahAhaHaHahAhA.

Are you losing your mind?

No. You're okay. Yes, Yes, Yes.

You smile. Then frown.

I'm sorry, I had to. I’m sorry.

You don't bother wiping your tears. You just stare out the window. Hoping with all your foolish heart that this will make you closer to the world. You observe the dancing shadows, mocking you. Your house is the only one with the lights on. Even the streetlights decided it was hopeless to go on. The light bulbs are becoming dimmer with each passing day, threatening to flicker and die out.

Huh, perhaps you are the last human on earth.

Suddenly, a shadow passes by the window, unlike the others. Huh, Must've been your imagination. You have been hallucinating lately. Sigh.

Just go back to sleep. You’re losing your mind.

No You’re not! Your eyes are just tired. You’re tired.

Don’t deny it. Hehehe

But…

HERE IT IS AGAIN ! Surely you can't hallucinate twice in the span of seconds. Unless you've really gone crazy. Either way, you keep your eyes and ears perched up for any movement.

A KNOCK .

You let out something between a scream and a gasp, falling off your chair. WHERE IS THE BAT ?!?! You pick it up and position yourself behind the front door.

“ Who is it ?!” , you scream intimidatingly.

A chuckle. “ It's me, love ”

You can't believe it. NO. How? NO.

Your ears must be deceiving you. You’re crazy, You’re really crazy.

But you HEARD him. You know it!

You rush to the window...

And see him. Smiling with his eyes ( you can't really tell with the mask on ) . He looks okay. Healthy, thinner but healthy. Alive.

“ My test was negative. I’m okay. I don't have it, ” he comes closer and places his gloved hands on the window.

You slowly put yours above his. Shaking your head. Crying.

You can feel him. Even with all the glass between you, you can feel him. The light illuminates his face, making him the brightest thing in the darkness outside. There is still hope.

“ Well, won't you let me in ?” , he laughs.

You nod. Yes.

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An appealing story which carries with it much of the agoraphobia inherent in The Birdbox. I love the way we get a 'window' into the narrators mind which, it seems, is really struggling to fight back against the fear of the outside world. I wonder if the ending just comes that little bit too easily. I must say though I did begin to feel a little claustrophobic... I had never really thought how the two go together so well- imagine being both!!!

The sound of the tv filled the room yet again as my parents stared at the news reporter. The reporter was recorded; sat in the comfort of her own home repeating the redundant news as her eyes bore into the camera, “We have been told by the ministry of health that there have been 50 new cases of the coronavirus.”

I roll my eyes in annoyance, I think I’ve heard the word coronavirus at least 100 times today and that is sadly not an overstatement. I leave the room as the painful yet familiar words hit me, again, “Maya where are you going?” I look at my father in frustration, it’s like he wants me to remember the bitter fact that I’m not going anywhere, I can’t go anywhere. I give him a look and head upstairs and lay on my bed. Again.

While I lie on my bed, I stare at the ceiling. I fantasise about all of the scenarios I’d rather be in and I fantasise and fantasise. I imagine and imagine until I feel my eyes getting tired wanting to fall asleep...

The funny thing is during the day I was anticipating falling asleep and now I’m dreading it because I know I will eventually have to wake up and get back to the gnarly and repetitive routine of my daily life. These days the only thing that isn’t the same about my day to day life are the books I read. Through quarantine I’ve entered the world of books, I’ve ridden dragons, slaughtered monsters, destroyed Voldemort. I have travelled through the blue sea, I’ve made friends with animals, made enemies with witches and warlocks and I’ve sailed through the Atlantic ocean and, as predictable and pitiful as some of these stories were, they weren’t nor ever could be anything as pitiful and predictable as what I am going through now. I guess why I have enjoyed reading so much is that each story is different. I get to live the lives of different people who have worries of their own and as much as people would like to remind others that they are going through things too, I can only understand it once I have lived it.

Finally, after thinking about everything there is to think about, I close my eyes and fall asleep and let my dreams guide me.

I wake up by the rays of morning light. These days are starting to feel endless, like a nightmare, reliving the same day over and over. How painfully familiar each day has become, exceedingly simple and unbearably repetitive but I look up at the window and shake the negative thoughts away. For some reason, in my gut, I feel like today will be somehow different...

I walk downstairs to see the face of my brother sitting there staring at me with hunger in his face. Yes, of course, I’m making breakfast today. Usually, I would have an argument with my dad or brother about society’s encouragement and normalization of toxic masculinity, to get out of making breakfast (which has never exactly worked for me for obvious reasons). But today in the light of optimism I decided it would be rather inappropriate to fight my five-year-old about this at 7 am, and I should better keep my feministic qualities to myself. So I gladly make eggs and turkey bacon, which is, other than pot noodles and grilled cheese, the only thing that I can make. My mom actually once banned me from the kitchen after my disastrous attempt at lasagne. Which has turned out exactly as you can imagine, disastrous.

I serve my brother the dish and smile at him widely. He looks at me confused, he is rarely exposed to my non-moody self, I glare at him for his judgement and then stare at the window in front of me. It’s funny how through the window you see the outside world looking almost the same as it did before, however, right now I’m aware of the barrier more than ever. Windows are made for the purpose of bringing light, the natural light of the world around us, windows to me are the symbol of naturalism. I want to provoke that naturalism and be again part of the world that seems so distant yet natural to me, normal to me. Naturalism is difficult, counter-intuitive to what society expects from us, the gut-wrenching feeling of wanting to be accepted in a world where so little is accepted. But we must look on the bright side.

This morning as I stared at the window of optimism, I remembered what many of us seem to forget that each day is different, we get to choose how we act or what we do. With the privilege of getting to open a window, to live a new day, we must look in the bright side and bring as much good as we can possibly bring and express as much love as we can possibly express. And with staying home I am expressing that love, bringing that good, opening that window. The window of optimism.

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This is a lovely narrative invested with a quirky sense of humour - I love the digression into the argument about toxic masculinity that did not happen 'today' with the narrator's five year old brother. And of course I cannot but ask you all to re-read paragraph 4 which shows just one of the many reasons I am back in the middle of reading the LOTR trilogy... we should all open the window of optimisim... I would but it would probably stick or break...

Windows are the bridge between the inside you and the outside you. It’s funny how we act when we are in public and when we are in solitude. We always tend to laugh at people’s jokes or make our own jokes so we could attract a huge crowd that we call our social circle or friendship group. But the main question arises when you ask a window, “ Was that really me?” The answer is no because no matter how much we deny it, we can never be ourselves in front of the public. That is why there always exist two versions of you. The first one is the “you” in front of other people. The second one is the “you” that exists at a particular time when there is no one around. This is the actual you because now there is no one to judge you or to make fun of the way you laugh. And a window is a bridge that connects both the versions of you.

Windows are everywhere but we just don’t see them. They are the freedom that lies in your heart waiting to show itself out. There is a saying that goes like, “opportunities never knock your door twice.” This was originally a Spanish proverb which actually says, “Opportunity never knocks twice at any man’s door”. This is apparently true because the opportunities here are like windows. They are everywhere but we do not see them and when we see them, we have two options. The first one is to grab one and give life to the freedom that exists deep inside you. The second option is to act lethargic towards that opportunity. Most people use the first option because their freedom is more precious than anyone else’s and to give it life, we prefer grabbing opportunities that lie in front of us.

Your eyes are the windows to your soul. They are the most important ones as we prefer to cover it up with all the makeup we possibly can. This is the most common phrase that comes to our mind when we think of windows and William Shakespeare. It basically means that you can understand a person’s emotions and thoughts by just looking into their eyes. That is why when a child is sad but is old enough not to show it, she can put on fake makeup to show it better that she is not sad and is the happiest person alive. No matter what happens, the mother of that child can always understand what her child is feeling no matter how old the two of them have grown.

Windows are the way you enter into the light. It is the only way you walk away from ignorance and make yourself more knowledgeable. Here, the light is referred to as the knowledge and the darkness is referred to as ignorance. Between them lies a window. And again you have two choices to make. Either you walk out of the window and witness the sunshine or you stay behind in the darkness. As the light falls on you, you receive the knowledge of the outside world which obviously would not be possible if you preferred to stay in the darkness. As the saying goes by boundless you, “Ignorance is the darkness of the mind which can only be conquered by education.”

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These are themselves a series of windows, or portals, into the writer's thoughts about windows. I like this structure which with a little more of an overall thread could break up an argument into completely separate but linked ideas. I think this could be worked more by playing with narrative a little, maybe playing with language or literary devices.

Secure the latches,

Close the shades.

We must protect ourselves,

From the world with blades.

We continue to live by this mantra;

A pillow to save

Our glass-encased minds,

Hiding the pain in our panes.

The thousands crawling across cities,

Begging to get food to continue their drive,

Doctors falling like soldiers on the front lines,

Sacrificing their lives so others survive.

We smudge the panel,

Obscuring our view further,

Choosing to ignore our

Thirsty, tired, torn kin.

Instead we complain of our little luxuries,

The gold in our assumed debris.

Closing our doors to strangers,

Sheltering our sympathy and empathy.

If we just clean our windows,

And look out once in a while,

We’d be able to see the suffering

Of those we hold dear.

So please,

Stop ignoring what’s happening around you,

And open your eyes,

To the shattered view outside.

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This poem has a number of lines which need to be savoured. lines like 'our glass encased minds' and of course the ensuing use of the pun - 'the pain in our panes'. The moral here, clearly delineated in the final stanza, is an very relevant one.

The individual raindrops have ceased, and now a swarm of hums fill the outside sky, silencing anyone who hears it. Like a tap switched on, so heavy and monstrous, you can’t help but be soothed by nature’s rare shower. I turn my head abruptly, silencing my happy thoughts.

Okay. Shakespeare. ‘I think…’

A bird sings, a clear invitation to take another look out the window. So aesthetic, clouds--

No. Focus. This is due in 10 minutes. ‘I think Shakespeare…’

My fingers type, but my brain has already got lost.

My eyes pull towards the window, a magnetic force, forcing my eyes to watch the paradise awaiting me.

‘I think Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a written piece…’

Beady dew drops fill the window. I walk towards it, fingers stretching out to feel the cool breeze. Waving my hand in the air, I blink--

--and it’s gone.

The utopia vanishes in front of my eyes and I am back. Back in the classroom where the only window is the one on my laptop screen.

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I love this narrative for the way it plays out two competing worlds that block each other out. It reminds me a little of Blake - specifically The Schoolboy from Songs of Experience. There is also a touch of Emily Brontë's 'In dungeons dark I cannot sing..' and of course the lovely twist on the 'windows' pun. Microsoft Windows... of course the author here does not go as far as to use windows but leaves that to the reader which I also like

The rays of the morning sunlight strike my pale face one cool morning. My eyes slowly open as I reluctantly climb out of my bed. I slide the slippers on my cold toes and begin to pace out of the room. Halfway there, something stops me; a nagging thought that makes me turn around.

I realise that I’m staring at my window. In the hazy morning mist I make out a car. However, it’s not just any car - it’s my dream car that I hope to get one day. Intrigued, I look at it in the distance. Thoughts of awe and disbelief race through my head. But the car looks as real as it gets. Suddenly, the keys to the vehicle appear a little way in front of me. Curiosity gets the better of me and I reach for them.

My smile drops as I can’t reach my prize, blocked by the physical barrier of the window. I frown in dismay, and a few seconds later an image of an amazing house forms in the mist. It’s a beautiful marble villa built by the beach, and I have always wanted it. Once again the keys drift in my direction, as if they were taunting me. I reach for them, yet I am stopped by the clear glass as before. I grunt in discontent and look away.

After waiting a minute or two, I turn back to face the window. This time, a woman huddling two small, blank-faced children took the place of all my other desires. This sight sparked a conflict of rage and intense desire in my mind. Driven forward by these triggering thoughts, I run up to the window and pound it with all my force.

I want my dreams! Why is everything restricted and so hard to get? I slam and pound the window over and over again, harder each time - until it smashes. I see the shards fall indefinitely. The mist outside is enveloping everything. I see the car, home, woman and children out in the distance. I climb through the broken window, and feel victorious.

I dive into the mist, yet I find myself highly mobile in the cool and humid environment. The car, house, woman and children are in the distance, but I think I can make it. I propel myself forwards through the mist quickly. It all seems too easy, and I’m almost there. I reach for the car… and it floats away. I shake my head, and reach for the house… which also floats away.

When I look at the woman and her children, they give me a dirty look and walk away into the distance. I cry out in despair; all hope was lost. I feel like I’m falling - wait, I am falling! Falling into the depths of the mysterious mist…

I wake up with a jolt, panting heavily and sweating buckets. I look around the room - everything seems to be normal. My eyes glance at the window on the wall, a perfectly normal one now. The sounds of the city shake me to my senses. What had I just experienced? Was it some kind of moral? Of course it was. The window looked into my soul, at my deepest desires. It showed me that my dreams had to come with a sacrifice, and it never came easy.

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There is a wonderful Macbeth quality about this. The three visions are reminiscent of the visions the 'Weird Sisters' present, tempting you off the true path. Then there is the fatal visions of the keys , tantalisingly close and reachable and yet not 'sensible to feeling', Yet all this has a very modern view and real view- the house the car the family. I do slightly shudder at the use of the dream cliché here and wonder if this could have been avoided.

You were my window

My way to see the world

Seemed so beautiful

I could see through you

Flowers that bloomed

I could see through you

The Sun that rose

But I didn’t realize

That you were hurting

Because everytime I looked

I looked through you

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I really liked the twist in this one, saved until the final line. There is a pain the relationship here, or rather the lack of a relationship... Neat, fun and and at the same time painful. Maybe I would say it has the innocence of a Sarah Kay poem; or that of a poet of that book that someone lent me but I now forget the poet and the title...