Outside
The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. She didn’t get to look out that window often, but when she did she was transfixed. When she heard him moving about she forced herself to turn away from the window and be busy with some minor task. To her he seemed handsome though she was a little hazy on what she meant by handsome. It was just that he was like the window. When she saw him it was hard to look away. Those were the only two things that made her feel that way. The window and him. The others called him Bob. To her he was the King of Everything, but to the others he was just Bob. She could barely remember a time before she was here. She thinks she was kidnapped, according to what others have told her. She, and a lot of the others are the kidnapped people. To her, living here didn’t seem strange or unwarranted because she could remember nothing else. But many of the others remembered very well. They were older and had lived some life before they were here, and that made them mad. She didn’t feel like she’d lived any life. She thought she wanted to live some life. They told her she should be mad too, but she didn’t know how. She was Bob's tender. She knew how to do many things. She could fold clothes, She could cook in the big underground kitchen. She could vacuum, she could dust, she could mop, she could clean a toilet like nobody's business, she could speak three languages, she could sew, she could wash dishes, she could break a man’s hand by squeezing it with hers, she could do things that he liked in bed. But she couldn’t make herself feel mad, and none of the others could make her feel mad, no matter how hard they tried. The others were afraid of the window, which surprised her. She wanted to know why they were afraid. They told her that the things out there were horrible, that watching them would make her sick. She was puzzled by their responses and she thought maybe there was something wrong with her. But she just kept it to herself. Once she saw a man with a rifle on one of the parapets. She asked one of the others and they told her that the man was a guard, and that the guards were there to protect them. She was happy about the guards. She liked being safe, and the guards were there to keep her safe. They said. One day when she was washing dishes in a corner of the big kitchen she started to think about living some life. It seemed to her that nothing she did qualified as living some life. Maybe what she and he did in the dark sometimes qualified. She hoped it did. But other than that it didn’t seem like she was living any life. And then she began to think about it some more and the more she thought the more she began to think that she had to go outside to live some life. But outside was dangerous. And forbidden. And she also realized that she didn’t know how to get out. She had never seen anyone go out. She had heard that people went out, but nobody knew how that happened. It occurred to her that she could try to break the window, but thinking about that made her feel bad. She didn’t think she could even make herself try to break the window. She decided instead that she would try to figure out how people got out. She knew there were imposters. People who looked and worked and lived like the kidnapped people, but were actually one of them. Bob was one of them but everybody knew that. Also some of the kidnapped people secretly worked for them. People said. So she waited. Quite a while. And finally she decided to talk to her longtime best friend about it. If her friend worked for them, she thought she probably didn’t really want to live some life. If your friend was one of them there really was no life to live. In her opinion. So she told her and she was chill. As they say. So they began to plot in secret. They became blood sisters.They sharpened their skills of observation. They pretended to study math together, but that made people suspicious, so they stopped. They casually followed people and told each other they were tailing them. It was great fun. This is almost living she thought. And finally, after many false attempts, they found a guy who knew how to get out. He didn’t know that they knew he knew how to get out, and they didn’t know if he was one of them so they thought they better think about it before they did anything. And that’s what they did. The door out was through other doors and then some others too. But with clever deception and flirtatious behavior they were able to connive their way to the final door. Whenever he went out the door closed behind him. They made friends with him. They decided to confide in him. And he laughed at them. “I take out the garbage. You’ve made friends with the guy who takes out the garbage.” He wasn’t one of them but he worked for them. He was the guy who took out the garbage. But they didn’t care if he was just the garbage guy as long as he wasn’t one of them and he wasn’t going to squeal. They knew things could get bad when people squealed. But he was chill too, so no big deal. They asked him what it was like out there and he said, “Stinky”. But they said, “No! Farther away. When you’re not by the garbage.” He thought for a while and he said, “I don’t know. I never get far away from the garbage.” So they asked him what he did out there. “Well, I put the garbage in the bins.” They looked at him with disappointment. “Sometimes I smoke a cigarette,” he said hopefully. Despite their disappointment they thought smoking a cigarette out by the garbage represented a step up from where they were so they attempted to convince the garbage guy to let them come out and smoke a cigarette. He said OK. She had to pretend to smoke the cigarette since it was something she had never done before. Her friend too. Her friend was an even worse pretender and coughed like mad. He laughed and said they weren’t required to smoke. They both put their cigarettes in the trash. She noticed the sunset blazing in the distance. She had never seen a sunset before, or a sunrise. The window faced north. And the sky was so wide. When they came back in she felt like she had been living. Even if it was just by some garbage bins. Imagine how much life there must be! One day another tender asked who she worked for. “Just some guy,” she said. “Which guy?” She didn’t know what the difference was but she said, “A guy named Bob.” That stopped the conversation. “Bob?” The other tender seemed astonished. “Yeah, a guy named Bob,” she said. The other tender sputtered, “There is only one Bob. Bob! Bob! Bob! Bob runs this whole place. You work for the boss of all bosses.” She thought about it for a minute. "If you say so, but we both do the same work so what does it matter who he is? Their poop all smells the same." The other tender didn't agree. "They picked you to be Bob's tender. You should get some special privileges. They must think you're the best." Later she told her friend about what she had found out and her friend was in agreement that she should get some special privileges. She thought maybe this did make some sense, since he actually was kind of The King Of Everything. But she couldn’t think of any privilege to ask for. Then she began to think and she wondered if Bob could help her get out there and really live. She asked her friend what she thought. Her friend said two words. “Be careful.” So she was careful. One night in the dark she asked him what it was like outside. After a long dark silence he said, “People don’t go out there, and people shouldn’t go out there.” She decided not to ask Bob for help. Her friend was afraid and not interested in going out there. And as angry as many of the kidnapped people were, they were also terrified to go out. Then one day she heard about a guy who knew stuff about outside. She had seen him around. He was old. He cleaned bathrooms. She followed him into the laundry one day. She asked him what he knew. “Some. I know which way to go if you leave. There’s a chance of surviving if you go that way.” She looked him over. “Why don’t you go?” He smiled. “I’m too old. It’s hard out there. And anyone I knew is long gone. Besides, I lived quite a bit. In my day.” He told her to go north. “You’ll see a sentry. Well, it’s just a statue of a sentry really. The sentry is guarding a giant bull. The bull is a statue too. But someone lives inside the statue. A woman who will guide you. You can trust her. She knows all the places that were and which ones still are and the ones that might be safe.” She looked around the laundry to make sure they were still alone. “Will she want something from me if I find her?”. He thought for a moment. “I’m pretty sure she’ll want to know everything you know about Bob. You know a lot about Bob. You probably know things that you don’t even realize you know. I think she will be happy to help you if you tell her what you know.” She thanked him and went away. She wondered why the woman in the statue wanted to know about Bob. Maybe she wanted to kill him, or capture him, or cut his thing off. But she had already decided to go. She was no longer going to have any need for his thing. She wanted to do a bunch of living. She decided that she would leave just after dark on a Tuesday. She thought Tuesday’s were lucky. Her plan was to go out through the garbage bin door, then circle around the building and head north and toward the woman in the statue. On the Tuesday she left she ran into the garbage guy when she got to the door. “Where you going?” he asked. “I’ve decided to leave. I’m escaping." She saw his eyes open wide. “Wanna have a cigarette before you leave?” he asked. So they smoked a cigarette. She was pretty good at it by now. As the dark thickened and the last of their smoke lifted skyward she turned and looked at him. “You wanna come with?” she asked. “Sure,” he said. “I’m not busy." They headed around the building so they could go north. She checked the parapets as they went but saw no guards. “I can crush a man’s hand with mine,” she said casually. “Do you want to see?” He looked at his hand. “No thanks,” he said. “Maybe later.” They reached the north side and she saw the window glowing from within. She walked over and looked in. Bob was busy doing something at his desk. She wasn’t transfixed. She turned to garbage guy. “OK,” she said. “Let’s go”.