Save Me

She sits there, behind the pane of glass, mocking me with her eyes. I can see her, through the words I write, even through these words, right now. Her long dark hair, her dusky skin, the brilliantly white teeth standing out from full, sensuous lips, and, finally, the deep wells of her eyes, endless depths concealed in the orange-brown iris.
Her lips form the words, almost as if she mirrors my thoughts; save me. I know that if I heed her, if I give in to my instincts, the world will be a different place; mere people, those ghosts I see around me every day, would be transient, flat, two-dimensional, while she would solidify, grow, become… something.
She reaches out to me, her fingers long and languid, but then she realises that there is a barrier between us; the glass that imprisons her, that keeps her in her box; no Schrödinger's cat this one, for she is observed, and her every mood is on display; capricious, playful, flirtatious, angry or frustrated, she wears them on her as if medals on a uniformed veteran, proud and tall. I see her every action and reaction through the windows that line the glass between us.
Her hands now are pressed up against the screen; Save me! She mouths it desperately, but I can't hear; deaf to her words, I blindly continue with my work. Filling the space between us with endless writing, building a world for us to live in, for us to travel through and, finally, for us to leave. We must always leave, for it is not how we enter or what we do, but how we leave the world that defines us, all too often.
Her hands look strange, flattened, all the colour taken from them as she squashes them against the walls of her bindings; frantic now, she forms the words again. Save me! Save me now! Before it's too late!
But she is already doomed; a single mis-stroke of my finger, the Windows between us close, leaving me beating in frustration on my desk; for my computer has crashed, my writing is lost and my muse, so fleeting an existence, is gone.
If only I had saved.