We’re pleased to announce the winner of the June WWWC: Paige Johnstone! Responding to the prompt ‘looking in and looking out’, Paige’s story is a haunting dip in and out of the past.

Read her winning entry in full below.

‘Looking In and Looking Out’

This is the room in which you were born. Your mother had always said it was the loveliest of births; you slipped from her body smelling of powdered milk and talcum, your baby curls tickling her nose as she kissed your forehead. Using a cotton towel, your father swaddled you and cupped your tiny hand in his own. The perfect family.

Below your feet, in front of where the bed used to stand, there is a stain on the floor. A deep brown that curls the boards slightly at their seams, whose shadow scrubbing could never shift. It tells you that you came into this world screaming and covered in blood. Your father cut the umbilical cord in a janky slash, not able see past his tears. Despite the chaos, your mother kissed you anyway, her lips coming away red as she gasped your name.

‘Melody,’ she said, and in response you began to cry…

…Melody is squatting in the centre of the room in which she was born, right where a dusty mattress is being absorbed by rot. She scratches at the warped floorboards, picking the rust out from beneath her nails…

…The walls are papered pink, and little white ducks waddle along the edges near the skirting board. You remember how you poked their bills as you learned to crawl. They are just like the ducks from the yard, the ones your mother kept, and whose eggs went into the cakes that didn’t taste of egg, but of sugar and vanilla. The ducks were beautiful, and so was your mother; she glided rather than walked and her voice never raised louder than a summer wind through curtains. When she collected the eggs, she would let you hold the basket. You were four and slept in a bed that was so tall you had to jump to get into it.

On that particular day Father had come home from one of his trips. He had bought Mother many gifts; a new dress, a pearl necklace, a book in a foreign language that had delicate pictures and many words. He picked you up, his large hands settling around your ribcage as he lifted you into the air and waggled his nose against yours.

‘Do I get a gift?’ you would always ask, and when he finally put you down, he would answer.

‘Of course, the most expensive gift of all.’ He peeked brashly up at Mother. ‘But you mustn’t tell Mum, she would be jealous…’

…’Jealous?’ a familiar voice asks. Melody doesn’t respond, she simply glides out of the little bedroom with the faded wallpaper and into the main corridor.

In front of her, barely visible in the gloom, is a staircase. It only climbs upwards. Staircases are meant to be ascended. She cannot see the steps, and although she remembers their every landing, she looks down anyway, one foot after another…

…Upstairs was her parent’s room, Father’s study, and a small ensuite bathroom with a bath that overlooked the garden where Mother had kept her ducks. On cold winter mornings you would sneak out of your room, miniature toes turning blue. The door never creaked when opening, only on the close, so you left it ajar as you tiptoed to the stairs. With each step upwards your excitement grew, a blossoming heart within a sepal rib cage. By the last steps, you always ran, feet pattering against hard wood. As you entered your parent’s room, they pretended to sleep. With a sprinting start, you would leap into the air, and Father would catch you with his blanket snare, pulling you under where Mother was waiting.

When all was finally calm, and you had finally slayed the tickle monster, you, Mother, and Father would lay there in that warm bed. Father would look at Mother, and Mother would look at you, and you would look at them both, and…

…’What are you doing?’

Melody is lying on the floor, gazing out between the broken bed struts above her. Their edges are sharp, broken by teenagers with baseball bats and $300 Nike shoes. She can see them jumping on the bed frame, the mattress long squeezed out through the shattered windows. Taking their bats to the bed, they smashed apart the aged wood with little effort, destroying the place in which a mother, father, and child used to discuss their dreams.

‘They have destroyed everything,’ Melody gasps, holding back tears.

‘That’s what we do,’ responds the voice.

‘Why?’

‘Why not?’ The voice sounds afraid…

…You enter the next room. It was Father’s office, and his desk is still there. Atop its warped surface is the stand for a globe, the wooden half-moon snapped a few inches from where its top used to be. Like you, it is now empty.

On the first night after a long trip, Father would sit you down in his office upon his knee. The fire would roar from the fireplace that now contains nothing but the bones of some poor animal. You wonder what happened to them, the animal, and whether they fell down the chute, or crawled through the window and sought solace in the ancient soot. You decide it doesn’t matter. What is dead is dead.

‘Are the lands this brown from so high up?’ you once asked Father.

‘No, they are all colours,’ he said. Then, telling you to be careful, he gave you a pin with a small blue tip. Like many nights before, he told you of all the new places he had been, the cities that were older than anyone alive, the people who talked in many tongues, and the food that could never be replicated. Back then you did not believe those lands were real; all that there was, and ever would be, was in this house. You told him as much, but he simply laughed, his chest pressing against your back, and like many times before, you stuck the pin into Father’s new world. Later, you would imagine exploring those places, finding all of his pins, knowing when you found one that you were standing where he had once stood. You never did find them.

As you leave the room, you wish you could close the door after you, but it is hanging off of its hinges, so you settle with briefly closing your eyes.

Continuing down the hallway, something strange catches your attention, something you do not remember. You turn to look, to read what can only be graffiti left by someone who wished to be immortal, and as you step back you fall…

…Melody barely catches herself, breathing fast as she feels the floor moan. The wood is rotten, barely holding her weight.

‘Careful,’ says the voice, closer now.

‘This is not supposed to be here,’ Melody exclaims. She does not remember this room, its walls are a colour she cannot place, and its contents are unfamiliar. ‘None of this is supposed to be here!’

‘Neither are we,’ says the voice. It is coming from over her shoulder, so close she can feel the air wrap around each syllable before it hits the nape of her neck.

‘It’s all wrong,’ Melody whimpers, ‘all wrong.’

‘Melody…’

…On a Wednesday morning, you and Mother realised Father was not coming home. On the Sunday before, he had kissed you goodbye as he always did, ruffling the hair that looked so much like his own. Then, he kissed Mother, pressing their foreheads together in an intimate embrace. Perhaps he had held her longer that morning, or perhaps he had held her the same as always. In the end it did not matter; when he walked through that front door, he did not look back.

You and Mother never talked of Father again. And yet, here in this room, something was waiting…

…’That must be why.’

‘Why?’ says the voice.

‘Why I don’t remember this room.’ Melody waits for the voice to respond, but the air remains still, as if no one, not even the house, has any more breath to give. ‘She must have locked it away when he left.’

‘When who left?’ asks the now doleful voice.

‘Father,’ Melody says. ‘Something about this room must have upset her.’

‘Oh Melody.’

‘Maybe it was where he kept the model ships.’

‘Melody.’

‘He read here on those Sunday afternoons. I could see him from the garden.’

‘Melody!’ the voice shouts. Finally, Melody turns to face her friend, whose face is full of tears…

…’Why are you crying?’ You ask your friend.

‘Because,’ she says, and suddenly you cannot speak. ‘Because I feel as if you no longer know me, as if I am looking in as you are looking out, and we are nothing but strangers.’ Her tears come faster now, you can feel them falling down your cheeks.

‘He left us all alone.’

‘I know Melody, I know, but he didn’t leave you here. Not in this house.’