She had been staring out the window for hours now, waiting for the slightest of flurries to swell into giant flakes of snow. The sky was a dull but soothing grey and the trees surrounding the property were swaying lazy in the breeze. She could see out past the wilted grass to the lake behind her room; it’s edges were kissed by frost and just starting to sparkle.

It had been so long since she’d felt wind comb through her tangled blonde hair. So long since the stars fell out of the clouds and melted down her cheeks. So long since she’d stood in that field that stretched like an eternity out to the water’s edge. All these things were fading memories; she could hardly remember what they were like.

For 10 years, she’d been inside. Not just inside, but in one of two rooms. Long draped curtains hang heavy on either side of the massive bay window. She sits kneeling on a navy blue loveseat that rests firmly against the bleached white wall. The rest of the room was always a blur between medications and meal times. She could only ever focus her mind, focus her thoughts when she gazed outside.

She often felt as though she’d been there staring out that window for the entire 9 years, 10 months, and 17 days she’d been at the facility. Her foggy brain nearly always focused on long lost memories of outside, with the occasional passing thought of Does numbing everything fix whatever’s wrong?

The trees of late Autumn reach almost naked toward the sky. Their branches like fingertips frostbitten and outstretched to the heavens. The storm picks up before spring green eyes that dart back and forth across the landscape. It’s starting to stick. Deep warm exhales plume over the glass sprouting fog over it’s crystalline surface; she brushes a sweater cloaked fist across the glass to clear it away.

It only felt like seconds before She came in to coax her to the table. Time to eat, time to medicate.

“Avaline,” Her voice sounds so far away. “Avaline,” she repeats. She holds a fork full of something beige up near her mouth. Avaline turns away and tries, as if in slow motion, to swat the fork away. The woman runs flat hands over her torso, straightening out her white scrubs. She sighs and stares at the back of Avaline’s head as she peers back toward the window.

“Must we do this every evening?” She sighs again. She stands abruptly, her chair screeching across the wood floor. After just a few steps, she reaches the door to Avaline’s room and rapped it’s glossy surface 3 times.

Contently in her own world, Avaline stares still out the window. If she could only find some way out of here, some way to form her words. Words that become slurred, choked, and taken twice a day. Just when the sun starts to peak through the clouds, the snow starts to fall heavy all over again.

She was nothing but a husk of a person. They had taken away all she was more than half of her life ago. After so much time, the days start to blend together. The routine starts to fade away. Nothing even feels real anymore. All that ever changed in her day to day was the window.

Avaline’s eyes flutter closed. She can feel the wind against her bare back. She can feel the mud squelch between her toes, curling up over their edges and threatening to suck her in. The dead, black grass sinks with her, overcome by the water and dirt. She focuses. The gritty, wet moisture feels so foreign over her skin. She feels the cold setting into the balls of her feet. Snowflakes like almonds tumble down from the clouds, landing on what’s left of her warmth and cooling it all away. They melt slowly down over her cheeks, down her shoulders, and over her chest. Just like she remembered. She lays her body down in the field. Limp and empty and wonderstruck as her first days on Earth. She could finally feel.

Avaline stretches her hands and her feet; lengthening her whole figure. Hands rest gentle in the grass. She settles into the wintery field as if she were a beautiful blooming daffodil in the first weeks of spring. She felt like she belonged. The image becomes shaky. It crumbles apart.

“Avaline!” the woman shouts; and her eyes open.