Bill The Window Warrior

By James Jajac 2006

Time stood still from the window to his face. Only that fragment of space had been affected. Just outside of the room he was standing in, was a long white hallway that at the opposite end of was a kitchen, and in that kitchen there was a door and the doorknob of that door was being furiously shaken. It was locked.

In that first room we have Bill a terrible paranoid prone to panic attacks, he often stood in the front room like that staring out the window for hours on end; it was a some what busy street so there was a lot to look at but Bills intentions may not have been curiosity as much as it was terror. He was afraid of being murdered. He would tell you, you didn’t have to ask, that three people had been murdered on his street since 1968, and that one can never be too careful.

Today when he was staring out that window there was a fight that took place in front of his home, it must have been about twenty to thirty kids. It was a furious battle; there were knives and even guns involved. Bill froze, he should have liked to call the police but he was afraid to take his eyes off of them, he wanted to be ready. He had to be ready.

There was a red haired boy, he had sort of a lumpy face with freckles, some one hit him with a bat across the teeth and nose and he fell screaming onto Bills steps, Bill flinched thinking of the blood but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything.

A car window was busted open, glass was every where, the car alarm erupted, and a siren screamed in protest. Bills hands by his side were trembling.

Soon there were more sirens but this time it was the police, three cars that he could see pulled into view maybe more. Most of the boys scattered, the few that remained were badly injured. One of the boys shot at a police officer and the officer fell down beside his car. His hat fell off and rolled over sideways. There was shouting and gun fire as the boy pressed between the narrow space between the houses. Bill could hear him struggling through.

Then he heard it. At the back door, the doorknob; He couldn’t move.

He was going to be murdered.

He was going to be murdered.

He stared out the window. The officers were too large to push through the narrow gap. They ran away toward the end of the block; to the right. Bill watched it all unfold.

The ambulances scooped up bodies.

The door shook.

There were footsteps and voices in every direction.

The back door, some one was kicking it.

The traffic was stalled, the red sirens reflected across the window pane.

He heard the back door splinter and give and then foot steps, as they came down that long hall way.

He couldn’t turn around.

He would go away.

Bill couldn’t move.

The footsteps went passed his doorway and they sounded upon his wooden steps. He had gone upstairs.

There were more footsteps and voices now, from the kitchen; heavy foot steps and loud voices.

Bill tried to process it all in his mind.

He turned and lifted his loaded weapon from his dresser drawer.

He tried to remember what he was afraid of.

A police officer entered the door way and when he fired he remembered that that wasn’t it.

He fired again and again until the gun was empty.

Now it was quiet except for the voices outside the window.

He turned around.

There was an officer, a police officer, with a gun aimed directly at him.

Through the window he saw it all.

The sound came second as the window shattered.

Everything was on a delay.

One can never be too careful.

The back of his head burst open and then came a peculiar sort of clarity.

One can never be too careful.

Through that window, he saw it all.

He tried not to panic.

THE END