Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 187

This week's picture prompt is by Polish artist Marta Orlowska. She likes to do surreal art and has a wealth of interesting art, worth checking out. 

A short and quick one this week. A literal snippet. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here.

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Safe

She’d sit by the window and just stare out, day after day. Occasionally she would read, but mostly she would pretend to read while staring. She’d imagine being out there in amongst it all – life.

Oh to be living and feeling, and being. It was there, just beyond the glass, tangible and waiting.

Was it fear that held her here, stuck? Or was it something she lacked inside that caused her believe it wasn’t possible? Or was it that she wouldn’t know what to do once she was out there? Did she know how to live?

She did once. She remembered all those years ago, when she was free – all be it for a short time. She’d laughed, and loved, and been herself without a care. No one that made her feel wrong, or small, or valueless, and as though she didn’t fit like they did here.

It’s why she stayed here in this room, sitting behind the glass looking out. If she stayed here in this place nothing could harm her; no snide comments, backhand remarks, or offhand criticism to cut her to the quick. No feelings of shame or rejection. Safe.

But not free. She saw a moth flutter up against the window. She watched it batting its wings against the glass. She reached up and opened the top window, helping to guide it out. Once free, she watched it disappear, a speck in the sky.

Oh to be a speck in the sky, drifting on the wind. She wished she could turn herself into a moth, and fly away. She imagined being able to dissolve herself into a whisper of moths, fly up and leave out of the window, to enjoy life to the fullest, surrounded by others who reflected every aspect of you.

She sighed and picked up her book. She couldn’t disappear through the glass, but maybe she could disappear into a book.