When Luke is five his mother gives him a picture of a tree. Silver brown branches carry a myriad of leaves. Luke traces the outline with his finger. “If I looked out of the window would I see one?”
“Not from here, sweetheart.”
“Can I look out of the window?”
His mother shakes her head. “When you’re older. Not until then.”
There isn’t a window in Luke’s bedroom. The only one is in his father’s workshop, and it’s covered by a shutter that is always closed. “To keep out the sun,” his father says, but never explains why.
Every birthday follows the same pattern. His mother gives him a picture of something growing; a plant, some flowers, fruit. Every year he asks to look out of the window. Every year she says not until he’s older.
At night he dreams of hilltops covered in trees, and seas that stretch into the distance. When he wakes in the morning he feels a sting of disappointment that it was only a dream.
Then on his fifteenth birthday his mother and father come into his room together.
“We think you’re old enough,” his father says.
“To look out of the window?”
His mother nods.
“To see the world?”
His parents exchange looks.
They stand in front of the window. His father presses the button and the shutter creaks and complains but inches upwards.
The light is blinding. “Just a few minutes,” his father says. “No more or we’ll overheat.”
Luke screws his eyes into the nothingness All he can see is white. “Where’s earth?”
His mother points. “There. Near the sun.”
Luke follows the line of her finger and sees something black and lifeless.
When he looks back at his mother a solitary tear is sliding down her cheek.
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