The house at 312 Wicker Street, the old Victorian one that had been previously unoccupied for months, was now filled with life again. The Grant family was excited to be part of a new community and enjoyed the view of Ludlow Park from their porch. At night, when all was quiet, except for the teenagers that hung out chatting in the park, all one could see was a glowing blue light from the upstairs window.
Sara Grant, a beautiful and flirtatious fifteen year-old, quickly became the most popular girl on the block. Wicker Street in Ludlow, Vermont had become the place to hang out now that she had moved in. Sara often sat on her windowsill, keeping the screen open, so that she could flaunt herself to all the kids passing by. The boys in her class at school would stop in front of her house deliberately, just to look at her. Sara was informed by her friend, May, that she had “stalkers,” but shy Sara surprisingly did not mind. If they wanted to look at her, she was going to feed them her beauty. Girls, the type that were usually too busy with many friends and boyfriends, began to envy Sara. They tried to do the same as she did, by sitting at their window sills in seductive poses, waiting for people to come by, but they didn’t get nearly as many visitors.
The one thing Sara did not have, was the privilege to hang out with the other kids her age. Her father, the strict one, the man who only cared about Sara’s grades, wouldn’t allow her to attend parties or socialize in the park at night. She was trapped in a box of a house, confined between thick walls, with only a small square to which she would expose herself. She spent her nights and weekends at her windowsill, staring at the people passing by. Sara, the voyeur, who would rather gaze out the window than play on the streets, longed for a friend to confide in. She knew details about the lives of each and every kid on her block, from their favorite music to their interesting pastimes but wasn’t sure if they really knew anything about her. Occasionally, her friends would come by and chalk the walkway to her house and leave her notes.
One day, when Sara’s friends stopped by she called out to them. “May! Margot!” Sara’s friends, obviously immersed in a conversation about some party that Sara could not attend, did not answer her. She screamed at the top of her lungs so loudly that potentially everyone on the block could hear her, but there was still no response. As Sara watched her friends finish writing a message on her walkway, she bit her lip in frustration, realizing that people always looked at her, commented about her, but never spoke to her. She felt as if she was a bird floating above her social life. She wasn’t apart of it, but the subject of it. That afternoon, she went to ask her father if she could play outside. “Dad, can I go out? I want to meet up with my friends.” “FINALLY!” her father screamed in delight. “Congratulations Sara. Have you quit your Facebook addiction at last? Are you finally going to move away from that screen? The blue light of her computer, the small object that had lit Wicker Street for the past month, preventing Sara from truly communicating, was finally turned off.