Eric was a writer who dreamed of becoming a full-blown author. He had a particular way of finding relief from stress by staring out of a window. It didn’t matter where he was; it could be a second-floor window overlooking a street light with rain pressing down that appeared bright and nearly freezing, causing chills from head to spine or a window that looked out onto a dew-filled lawn at the edge of a blue evergreen forest where fog didn’t penetrate the needles above but hid the fallen needles from dead branches of years past, pouring onto the lawn like it’s been played back in slow motion from the screen of a silent horror movie. The view didn’t matter; what mattered was the peace he found in looking out into the world no matter the conditions.
As a writer, Eric imagined describing what he saw out of the window, a mouthpiece for his characters, showing the demeanor of the characters through the looking glass. His intention was to make them less human and more like something out of a storybook. He knew that his words could entice the reader’s imagination and take them on a journey the world has yet to see.
Eric knew that he could walk up to the window and see what he could see. He could move between windows and observe the world through the eyes of his characters. He could see the characters he created staring out of the window too, lost in their thoughts, and not truly seeing what was in front of them. As a writer, he knew that they could move between worlds, always looking through the glass into his head. They were figments of his imagination protecting him from seeing himself as a failure.
As they all looked out of the window, Eric knew he could now be a full-blown author. He knew he could make the dream a reality, one word at a time. He would write and write until he had created a world that was both real and imaginary, a world that could entice and captivate his readers.
Francis Erich McElroy 