William Jewell

The curtain suddenly shakes to life, flailing about for a moment like a child having a temper tantrum. It cannot remove itself from the iron bar it was a part of, and thus resigns itself to eternally sitting there. Gradually, it shifts along the bar, becoming more familiar with this object confining it in place.

It cannot speak. It has no eyes. It is simply a curtain, but for some confounding reason, defying all laws of sensibility and reason, it lives. It can think, it can see, it can hear. This thin piece of fabric thrust itself into reality without so much as a care, now finally taking in the environment that will be its prison.

A house. A long abandoned house. A long abandoned house bordering on bustling busy life. The curtain is located in a small room with a slightly larger kitchen, viewable through a nearby pass-through. Also within view is an open hallway that leads to a small but seemingly tall room…a library, or study? Cobwebs occupy otherwise empty corners; dust gathers wherever it can. And yet, this mysterious curtain springs to life in this hollowed-empty place.

It thinks of where it is. It thinks of how it is trapped from the rest of the living world behind a pane of glass. It thinks of how it doesn’t want to be left behind, it wants to be involved, though powerless to do anything but move. To bring about nighttime or daylight to the house—no… just this lone, solitary room, is all this curtain can do.

It is all the curtain can do. Perhaps, it is all the curtain needs to do. Can the curtain bring life to this little corner of existence? 

Come sunrise, the curtain moves aside to brighten the space. As the sun sets, so too does the curtain close the window to the outside world. It finds joy in this simplicity, in this monotony, in this prison. It manages to redefine it. To make it more…palatable.

With newfound purpose, the curtain returns a warm glow to this long abandoned house, a glimmer of hope. Despite not having a mouth to sing, it dearly wants to, to spread the delight it has come to feel, so it sings the one song it knows: the song of itself, of its own existence, of its newfound joy. It sings in the only way it knows how, by thinking to itself.

The curtain, against insurmountable odds, turns a prison, into paradise.