Alexa Daskalakis

Before It Turned to Glass

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There was once a young woman named Elia,
who lived at the edge of a walled city
where time did not speak aloud.

The elders—gray-haired, polished with routine—told her the same thing:
“Stay. Time passes, but safety stays.”

Their halls were lined with paintings of what once was—
youth caught in amber,
glances that had once meant something.
But no new strokes were ever added.
The paint had dried before the artist died.

Elia visited the gallery often.
Not because she admired it—
but because she didn’t.

One day, behind a velvet curtain no one touched,
she found a room.

Inside, a single painting hung:
a woman her age,
one foot out the door,
light on her back.

The inscription read:
“She left before it turned to glass.”

No name. No record.
Just that image—warm in its defiance.

Elia stepped back into the hallway.
The elders passed her,
weighed down with quiet regrets
dressed as pride.
They smiled,
as if she were lucky not to know yet.

That night, she packed.
Not everything—
only what she couldn’t live with leaving.

She didn’t wait for a sign.
She had already seen it.

And when the doors shut behind her,
the city didn’t crumble.
It stayed exactly the same.

Which told her everything.