The Third-Floor Bedroom

 

No one ever went to the third-floor.  The furniture was covered in a thick layer of dust, and an eerie silence echoed throughout the empty hallways.  At the end of the dreary hallway, a single bedroom stood with its white-washed door closed to the unforgiving world.  If one were to open this bedroom door, they would find that the dust had avoided this room, and a certain shine sparkled around the open room.  Perfect white furniture, the color of baby powder, filled the room, and baby blue encompassed the walls.  There was just one slight difference on the back wall.  Paintings of white doves, wings outstretched, ran in lines down the length of the faded blue wall.  If one looked closely, they would be able to pick out the minute differences in each individual dove.  One may have a larger head than another, or a nick in their wing.  Why would an artist paint the doves differently? One may be tempted to ask.  Ah, this is why the third-floor has remained deserted for so many years.  The perfectly imperfect snowy doves had not always been an omnipresent painting on the baby blue wall, but had instead shown up of their own accord.  It all began when someone left the window open.  

Willow had always enjoyed living on the third-floor.  Since there was only one bedroom on this floor, she was the only person living on it.  It was quiet, peaceful.  In the mornings, the sun shone through her shear white curtains; it created tiny diamonds that twinkled in the morning light.  One fine morning, a sound woke Willow up from her dreams.  She had been dreaming that she was flying among the birds.  Willow opened her amber eyes, and yawned.  Her long, light brown hair had become matted around her face some time in the night like a rat’s nest.  As she began the process of untangling her hair from her face, Willow heard the sound again.  It was coming from the window.  Rap, rap, rap, came the incessant sound.  Willow blinked, attempting to place the sound.  Finally, she pulled her plush white comforter off of her bare legs, and walked to the window.  She pulled the shear white curtains back, so she could clearly see what was making the irritable noise.  A white dove sat at her window, tapping its beak against the impenetrable glass.  “No, little birdy, you cannot come in,” Willow whispered.  Upon taking a closer look at the dove, Willow saw that there was a tiny nick its wing.  The poor little bird could be injured, and is only looking for a nice place to land, Willow reasoned with herself.  Looking at the desperate bird, still rapping on the glass, Willow used all of her strength to open the window.  As soon as the window was open, the dove flew into the bedroom, circling it like a tornado.  Then, it was gone.  The dove could not have just vanished, Willow thought.  Scouring her room for the snowy white dove, Willow gasped when she found it.  It was on the wall, Flat-Stanley style.  The bird had merged with the wall, looking as if it had flown directly into it when it happened; it was as if the bird were painted onto the wall.

For the next 30 days, a dove appeared at Willow’s window, and disappeared on her wall until her whole back wall was covered with the flying doves.  On the 31^st day, there was no dove to greet Willow at her bedroom window.  There had been no rapping on her glass.  She was not sure if she was depressed or relieved.  The small white doves had become her familiar acquaintances, a pleasant sight to wake up to each morning.  As Willow arose from her bed, she glanced at her wall covered with the doves.  She had become accustomed to counting an additional dove each day, but this morning she counted one less.  As Willow pondered the missing dove, she heard a soft coo near her window.  Gasping, Willow turned around to find one of the snowy birds perched on the windowsill with its head tilted, as if wondering why she had not yet opened the window.  Staring at the bird, Willow heard a sort of peeling noise coming from her wall.  The doves were ridding themselves of the wall, and coming back to life in full force.  One by one the birds reappeared in Willow’s bedroom.  Shaken, Willow could not get to the window fast enough.  Her nails clawed at the chipped paint and uneven wood as she strained to pull the window free.  Freeing the window, she turned to look at the doves.  Their feathers had changed from a snowy white to a nightmarish black, and their screeching turned into that of nails on a chalkboard.  They were no longer the peaceful doves that came rapping on her window each morning, but the monsters that terrified you most in the darkest parts of your dreams.  As she ran for the door, the doves swarmed her like locusts.  The doves picked at Willow’s clothing until it was firmly in their beaks, and her feet no longer touched the wooden floor.  Willow fought, screamed, and kicked at the birds, but there were always more to nip at her face and her clothing.  The birds flew out the window, Willow grasped in their beaks.  As the inky doves flew off with their bounty, Willow thought of her dream of flying the night the first dove had appeared in her window.  She had never wanted it to be like this.