If I write dreams as they are

On her 10th birthday, Helga asked for a window.

“You have three,” her mother said, confused;

“Not those” she said. “A real one.”

They lived underground, in a neat apartment below the citys oldest library. The ceilings sweated in summer and freezed in winter. The only sky they knew was the blue rectangle of a screensaver that blinked above that kitchen sink.

“If you finish first in your class,” her mother said lightly, “we’ll see what we can do.”

Helga did.

So her mother brought home a frame of white wood and set it into the concrete wall of her room. It opened onto a brick, no views. Still, it had hinges, a latch, wide enough for her elbows.

“It’s just a pretending window,” her mother said.

That night, when the lights were out and the pipes had stopped their motions, Helga unlatched it.

Air rushed inside'cold, huge, and filled with stars.

She leaned out.

The next morning, her bed was empty and the curtains were breathing in and out like lungs. On the bed lay a scatter of constellations, bright as spilled salt.

By evening, every family in the building had installed a window of their own.

And far above the oldest library, the sky began to fill with children, carefully unlatching the dark.