The Witness in the Window

 TMS Press has decided to add a new category of articles, narratives! These narratives will have a new chapter each month. This is the first of those stories and if you have a narrative my email will be at the bottom for TMS students only to submit a narrative that will be in TMS Press. In the end, I hope you enjoy “The Witness in the Window”.

Chapter 1:

“Stop it! Come on, I said stop it!” I shouted from my bedroom doorway to my brother in his doorway at the other end of the hallway. We had just finished dinner and as usual he had to start making fun of me for who knows what. I was trying to hold back my tears because I was always seen as sensitive.

“Are you going to cry!? Your fourteen Abby don’t be such a baby.” He shouted back to me and slammed his door. I slammed mine right back at him.

I turned around and face planted on my bed holding a pillow to my face. I finally sat up and stared out my window for a little. The sun was setting and it created a beautiful sherbert color. The clouds covered everything above the setting sun and let out a cool breeze. 

I lived in San Francisco. But not  the “Fuller House” San Francisco, the city part. It was the best part. Some people may think that cities are too noisy, dirty and crammed but there are some days that everything seems to be peaceful. The cars stop honking, the angry taxi man stops yelling and all the people stop talking. This was one of those days. Except for my red face and the tears slowly dripping down onto my pillow.

I looked over to the apartment building across the street, I knew of three people who lived in those apartments. The first was a very young couple, like straight out of college young. Everyday the man would leave at eight A.M and give the woman a kiss on the cheek before heading out for work, and then every day he would return and greet her with flowers. The next was a very large family, well large for the city. Two adults and three kids, sounds like such a hassle. In this family the mom would usher out the three kids every morning for school and she would go to work leaving the husband behind. Little did she know he would go to the pub everyday at noon instead of staying home. The last person I knew across the street was this old man. He would always play 50’s music as he looked out his window, some days if I saw him he would wave to me. I didn’t know the names of any of these people, but I didn’t need to. I felt like I knew them enough as it is.

Tonight though, nobody was out, well not yet. At one point the young woman ran out of her apartment in a hurry and slammed the door as she left. She clearly had been crying, crying bad to the point she didn’t even sound like she was crying, just wailing in sadness. The man ran out behind her and started calling her name. I sat up in my bed and tried to listen closer.

“Margaret! Margaret, please come back. I didn’t mean it!” The man shouted. He reached for her arm as she tried to get into her car.

“I’m going to the police Tom! This isn’t right! I can’t keep secrets like this anymore!” She shouted back to him. Margaret layed her back against a light post and sunk down to her knees. She put her head to her hands and cried. They paused for a moment, she turned a little and then I could see it. Covering almost her whole face. It was a black eye.

Chapter 2 is in the link below! 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cYdeYCFCEJjAV9PzLhBk13JPY-r68VR3jTPpQL0GL90/edit?tab=t.0

Submit your narratives to me at this email for next month’s TMS Press:  [email protected]

TMS students only.