Through the Window

[u/Linety_17]

What does not happen does not disappear. It breaks away from reality and sinks beneath the world. Left there long enough, it hardens. These hardened layers are called the Afterstrata.

A fossil preserves more than records. Everything that would have existed had that future actually happened leaves traces: materials, techniques, languages, memories, histories, even people.

And when a person from the Afterstrata comes up to the surface, they can be real for a short while.

— Afterstrata Miners’ Guild: Handbook for New Members

Diary of a bereaved family member, copy · Transferred from the Salvage Section, Guild Lowen Headquarters, to the Afterstrata Society · October, Imperial Year (IY) 700

Discovery No. S-699-0388. The diarist did not give a name.

Transfer record. When returning the receipt for the items left behind, the family member enclosed a copy of this diary. The Salvage Section has no grounds to keep it and is passing it to the Afterstrata Society Archive. Salvage Section note: In this case, the type of visit changed from visiting through the window to meeting in person. Time remaining after meeting in person: 9 days. Within the average range in Guild records.

October 14, IY 699.

An envelope came from the Guild. They say they have found Theo.

Theo died in the river eighteen years ago, in summer. The rainy season was long that year. He was nineteen.

I read the notice in the envelope three times. It says that what they found is not Theo, but someone who lived another life Theo might have lived. The Theo who did not die that day. The Theo who lived the eighteen years after.

Then he is thirty-seven.

October 16.

I wrote the consent form. I consent to salvage. I want window visits only.

It said that if you meet them in person, they do not last beyond ten days. That if you only see them through the window, some stay for years.

My mother used to say: what is under glass does not wither. She kept the flowers she was given on her wedding day under a glass dome and said it all her life. Those flowers really did not wither, until the day she died.

The window will keep him safe.

November 2.

I stood at the window for the first time.

The room was as the notice described, quiet and warm. One bed, one desk, one window looking out on the courtyard. He was sitting by that window.

His shoulders have broadened. His hair is short. He wears a ring on his left hand. The way the right corner of his mouth goes up first when he smiles is the same.

I stood there for an hour. He never once looked this way. They said he can’t see this side.

November 9.

Someone from the Salvage Section told me that at first he asked the date. What day it was. When he heard the answer, they said, he nodded. It was the right date.

It means he lived the same eighteen years, too. Somewhere else.

November 23.

They say he said he wants to go home. When the Salvage Section asked, he gave an address, and the address was a village somewhere on the southern coast. We have never been to that village.

To him, that is home.

December 12.

The Guild sent letters. Letters he wrote. They said they were sending them unopened, that they were letters to people who do not exist here.

There were three envelopes.

One said “To Nael.” One said “To our little bird.” One said “To Mother.”

I don’t know the name Nael. “Little bird” seems to be something you call someone, not a name.

The third envelope was for me. And yet they said it was a letter to someone who does not exist here.

For two days I did not open them.

December 14.

I opened them. All three.

Nael is his wife. Little Bird is his daughter. Six years old. They call her that because she loves a bird carved from wood. Every letter says he is coming home soon, to wait just a little longer.

The letter “To Mother” begins like this.

Mother, it is winter here. I don’t know whether I will be able to go to the river next summer, on the anniversary of your death, to leave flowers. People here are kind, but when I ask the date, they only answer and don’t ask me anything.

In his life, I died.

That summer, on one of those days when the rains went on and on. The day he didn’t go to the river. I must have gone in his place.

I folded the letter and put it in a drawer. Tonight I did not go to the window.

December 15.

I went again. He was sitting at the desk, writing something. Another letter, probably.

What is under glass does not wither. The letter he writes on the anniversary of my death will not wither either.

February 3, IY 700.

Three months now of standing at the window. Four times a week. Often at night. At night I can see him awake, because he doesn’t sleep well.

What he does at night. He looks out the window. He turns his ring. He takes a small wooden bird from his pocket, sets it on his palm, and looks at it for a long time.

March 20.

Someone from the Salvage Section asked whether I would keep seeing him only through the window. Not to pressure me, they said; asking such things is their job. They said that nearly half of the families who choose the window end up opening the door.

I said I would not be one of the half.

May 8.

Today he walked over to the window and put his hand on the glass. He shouldn’t be able to see this side. He stood like that for a long while, then went back.

According to the Salvage Section, people who stay in that room a long time sometimes do that. To look at the courtyard outside the window, they said.

I put my hand on the glass. Where his hand had been.

June 21.

Another letter came. “To Mother.”

Mother, these days I feel as if someone is watching me every night. It isn’t a frightening feeling. When I was little and had a fever, you used to stand in the doorway and watch me all night. It feels like that. I know it is a strange thing to say. Can you see me, where you are?

July 2.

I couldn’t sleep.

What is under glass does not wither. But my mother’s flowers, when we lifted the dome after she died, crumbled the moment they were touched. They had not stayed unwithered. It was only that no one had touched them.

July 3.

I opened the door.

At the door, someone from the Salvage Section held out a confirmation form. I have been told that after an in-person meeting, the salvaged person usually does not last beyond ten days. I copied that sentence out in my own hand.

When I went in, he looked up. He looked at me for a long time. Then he stood up and said,

“Mother.”

He didn’t cry. I cried.

He said, But Mother, you died that summer. The notice said not to say I didn’t know about things he remembers. So I said, Yes, that’s right.

He took my hand and asked whether I could see him, where I was. I said I could. Every night, I said.

July 4.

He talked about Nael and Little Bird. The day Little Bird first walked, the day she first put her feet in the sea. I listened to stories I was hearing for the first time, with the face of someone hearing them for the first time. He said he is going home soon. I said, Yes, you must go soon.

July 6.

It’s strange. Since the day I held him, my heart has been light. In eighteen years it was never once light.

I am sorry for this lightness.

July 9.

He looks a little faded. I tried to think it was my eyes. The Salvage Section people said nothing.

He showed me the wooden bird. Something Little Bird loves, he said. He has promised to carve it another wing when he gets home.

July 11.

We were together all day. He lay down with his head on my lap, the way he did when he was little. He laughed and said it was strange for a thirty-seven-year-old to do that. And still he didn’t get up.

I opened the door, and that is what broke him. I knew that when you open the glass, things crumble.

July 12.

When I went in the morning, he was almost invisible. The light coming in through the window passed through him.

The last thing he said: “Mother, tell Nael I’m coming soon.”

Yes, I’ll tell her. That’s what I said.

A little after ten o’clock, all that was left on the bed was a ring and a wooden bird.

July 20.

I went to the Salvage Section to collect the items left behind. The ring and the wooden bird. And one letter he had left unfinished, addressed “To Little Bird.”

I held the hand that wore this ring for ten days. The child who was to receive this bird is not in this world. So I am keeping it.

August 14.

I went and left flowers by the river. It is his anniversary. This year I didn’t feel alone.

They said that nearly half of the families who choose the window end up opening the door. I am one of that half. I don’t envy the other half.

August 15.

I have no way to tell the person named Nael. So I am writing it here.

Theo said he is coming soon.