Yesterday as I was walking from one place to another, I came across a wall of glass, and on the other side stood a girl like me. She stood close to the wall until I approached; then guards went over her wistful eyes and she took a step back.
The room in which she stood looked very small to me, and I asked through the wall if she wanted out. I saw her desperate longing then, just for a second, as she nodded jerkily and said she would.
“Well,” I said, “Perhaps there is a door.” The room behind her was messy and by the patchy redness on her face, she looked as though she had been crying.
She nodded dully and pointed to my left. I walked the length of the glass and indeed, a crack ran smoothly down, and there were hinges on the parallel edge. But the latch seemed to be on the inside, and I was strangely hesitant to put out my hand and find out.
So I ran back to the girl, but she had retreated to a corner where she sat curled up tightly with her knees to her chest, forehead bowed against them so her face was hidden, and I was impatient with her oddness.
“There’s a door!” I shouted, knocking on the glass to get her attention and gesturing toward it. “Come out and be free! The sun is shining out here; the day is warm and full of life. You can get out of there!”
She looked up at me and shook her lazy head in dejection.
“Why not? I thought you wanted out.”
Slowly she stood and faced me, head hanging. She shook it again and said simply, “I can’t.”
She couldn’t go out like that, she said—not the way she was. And I saw for the first time that her clothes were filthy, even torn in places, and disgusting to behold.
“Put on something else,” I said, trying not to show her how I inwardly recoiled at the sight.
And again she said, “I can’t.” She had no other clothes—if one could truly call such wretched tatters garments at all.
“Well…you cannot get new clothes without venturing out,” I ventured half-heartedly.
But there was too much fear. Backwards she stepped, away from the glass, and I thought I heard her repeat, “I can’t, not this way.”
I knew with a twinge of pity that if I were as she, I would not want others to know of my stench, either, and have them twist their faces and pinch their raised noses when they passed by.
The girl retreated into her dark corner and I turned and walked away. And so yesterday came and went.
Today I passed my reflection in a mirror, a car window, a glass storefront. And I thought for a second I saw a wretched, putrid girl, face blotchy and ugly from crying and shame.
And I walked faster.
(Lord, have mercy!)
