Eve Through the Window
By Madeliene Hartman
It felt safe there, pressed against her daddy’s soft belly. Even her tears, which pooled in the small space between her eyelashes and the work shirt, warmed her daddy up and comforted her. It was silent, all but for her sniffles and the quiet rustle of his calloused hands stroking her hair.
“It’s okay, pumpkin.” His strong voice vibrated through the round belly, protecting her from the blood that made her leg all tingly and wet. She didn’t cry until she saw it, when her eyes looked down and saw the deep gash and crimson insides, then her leg hurt. Her eyes made her leg hurt, until she saw the glass, then she wailed and wailed until her daddy’s belly caught her sobs and she was safe.
“It’s okay, pumpkin. I know you didn’t mean to break the window.”
The window? Is that what she fell through? Did she break it as she fell through it? She didn’t even realize that she was sitting on the itchy, green grass. And she broke it? Was that bad? This funny feeling stirred in her stomach, like something mean was pulling hard on her insides and stuffing them in her throat, strangling her, killing her. She felt sorry that she broke the window. She felt embarrassed for not knowing she broke it.
Suddenly, she didn’t want to be pressed up against her daddy and his belly. They were too soft and they were smothering her. She pulled away and turned towards the broken window. It was very hot, and flies were lazily invading the living room. She remembered once how she left a glass of juice out on the coffee table and how a fly drowned in it, but she didn’t know that, so when she took a sip it touched her lips. That was a very gross feeling, how that black furry body and those pointy wings touched her lips. And now they were lazily invading the window to drown in whatever was left out, it was all her fault.
The feeling in her throat tightened, as if a great big snake wrapped around it, like in The Jungle Book when that silly snake with the swirly eyes tightly slithers around Mowgli and makes his eyes swirly too. Did she really break the big window? She wanted to cry more but her throat was too tight. It was an awful feeling to be ashamed.
“How did you get that scar, Eve?” Jason asked, laying on his side so that the desk lamp highlighted each divot of his muscles. He was incredibly beautiful; the kind of handsome that made her nervous. Eve felt lucky to be there with him, but of course, she would always be intimidated. Even as she laid beside him, basking in his warm naked body. It intimidated her that he looked so firm and sculpted and she so round and soft.
“You can really see it? I thought that scar faded.” Eve answered with a forced giggle. She hated how she tried so hard to be cutesy around him, but for some reason she couldn’t help herself. Maybe it was something primal. If it was, then maybe it would arouse some caveman side of Jason’s man brain and make him like her more. She quickly forgave herself for the giggle.
“20/20 vision, baby.” He replied with a smirk. He lightly ran his finger over the scar. Even his fingertips radiated heat. Eve felt herself melt away into ooey gooey ecstasy. “Do you remember?” he asked.
Pulling her mind, which felt partially melted, back into focus, Eve tried to remember through the haze of the moment. “I fell through a window. Okay, wait, that sounds extreme. It wasn’t off a thirty foot building or something, just like through a window in the living room.”
Jason threw his head back and laughed so hard that he turned pink. He looked so cute like that. The pink ran all the way to his scalp, making his blonde hair look almost white. Eve imagined how he must have looked as a baby, all pink and blonde every time he cried. Eve felt proud that she made him laugh so hard.
“What?” He said breathlessly between his laughing fits. “How the hell did you do that? What happened?”
“I actually don’t remember very well, but I think that I was playing…Oh my god, this is so embarrassing, Jason-”
“Oh come on, you’re not allowed to be shy around me”
“Okay, well. I was playing Barbies and I made Ken kiss Barbie, and then I took their clothes off.”
“No way, how old were you?”
“I don’t know, like five? Anyways, I got too nervous to do anything so I set them down and started hopping up and down, like I was trying to get rid of all the excitement that I got from it or something.”
Jason had an unreadable expression on his face. He smiled but it made Eve nervous. Should she be sharing this? She always struggled with these things because she could easily overwhelm people with her vulnerability, and she didn’t want to weird Jason out. She laughed nervously, cutely, and continued.
“I’m not really very coordinated, and obviously I wasn’t thinking about my surroundings-”
“With Ken’s bulge on your mind?” Jason added coyly.
Eve’s throat began to tighten “Haha, yeah, with Ken bulge on my mind. I think I sorta just tripped over myself while hopping and fell through the window. I don’t know. Kids are dumb” She said, choking on her words. She hoped that Jason didn’t hear the cracks. Her melted brain pulsed nervously, everything looked soaked in green.
“Damn, that’s crazy.” Jason concluded, and then he just stared at the ceiling.
Eve felt utterly horrified. He definitely didn’t want to look at her because she exposed herself too much and exposure didn’t look attractive on anybody. People look much better tightly wound up in layers of skin, not red and pulsing.
She heard buzzing and saw a swarm of flies pressed against the window. Hovering over the black mass of their bodies, they carried, like a crown, a serpent dripping with blood.
“So do you got a snap? You’re definitely a freak.”
The flies hummed and buzzed and blackened and shrieked. Then the snake smiled and Eve knew that he had the same soul as the devil somehow. Her throat felt so tight. This feeling would kill her. It was an awful feeling to be ashamed.
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