A LONELY WINDOW

 

The old window with the shattered pane had a story to tell. It was a story it saw unfold, trapped between two worlds. Its eyes never closed during the sunny days and dark nights. It saw the joys and sorrows, laughter and tears, love and arguments of the people in the room it belonged to.

A young couple lived inside. Their love had once shone as much as the sun rays that poured through the glass. They would laugh, tease one another and be happy about little things. The window witnessed how they turned their home into a tiny paradise. Gradually, though, their happiness became overshadowed. Small fights started to appear. The window could sense the light in their eyes fade gradually.

The world outside was different. From the window, a small alley was visible, where children would always be playing. Their laughter, their squabbles, and their relentless energy would make the window forget loneliness for a while. At the corner of the same alley, an elderly lady used to sit. Sometimes she sat in thought; sometimes, without even looking at anything passing in front of her, she would just watch the passing world. The window never knew her story, but in her silence, a lot of things could be read.

It rained heavily one night. The noise of quarreling had ceased in the room but silence was more deafening. Outside, children are not playing. The lane was completely empty. That day, the window came to the conclusion that both the worlds inside and outside were similar. Both were experiencing happiness and grief. People can conceal their stories but not their emotions.

The window realized that it was not just a glass object, but a bridge that existed between two sides of life. It was telling the stories from the inside to the outside and the stories from the outside to the inside, but it was always stuck in the middle. It wanted to be a part of both worlds, but its existence was always confined to the threshold of the two.

The window noticed that humans wanted to hide in it to seek shelter from the storms outside but wanted to go outside to seek shelter from the pain inside. And there it stood, always in between, alone, watching this wonderful cycle of life.