Today I Peered Through My Window

"Today I Peered Through My Window" by Oriane

Artwork by Nika

Today I peered through my window

And I saw a girl with amber locks curling around her neck, her regal hair crowned by a halo. Feathered wings protruded from her back and something within her chest glowed in a golden light: a heart, pounding so ardently, as if yearning to break out of the confines of her chest. How did no one notice it? She wasn’t even on the ground. She was levitating like an angel on the cracked New York pavement, as I saw her run to the arms of a man.

A man? No, much more of a demon. His aura glowed in a maroon blood-red, his gaze chiseled, his wine stained lips meeting the angel-girl’s. They seemed to become one entity, like two candles melding together. Her light dimmed, his brightened. A cataclysmic event, so brightening, so rare, so pure and evil at once. Like sun and moon, like a warm fire and a cold winter, like light and darkness, a harmony so strange and nonsensical that it was something to admire—a harmony that some called Love. Legend says, few have ever seen it in its true form.

Today I peered through my window

And I saw a little boy, throwing a tantrum as his mother dragged him along the sidewalk. A tortured expression contorted his face, breaking the pure edges of his youthful age. He didn’t want to go to football class, of course. Sharp shrills sliced through the air. But his mother had grown resilient. Ever since losing her own parents, she had never given up on trying to make her son into the best thing she would ever possess: the only thing her heart was left beating for. And as she stood with her head high and a strict posture, a part of her shattered from knowing that her constant efforts weren’t appreciated. What if she wasn’t good enough of a mother? And as he stood with his head low and a slouching figure, a part of him shattered from thinking he would never be understood, because he liked dance instead of football. What if he would never get to dance again?

I was the only one who knew none of that mattered, because I immediately noticed the ghostly stethoscope hanging around his neck for a fleeting second: he was evidently to become a doctor after losing his mother to a heart attack.

Today I peered through my window

And I saw an old man, his face carved with wrinkles and inked with an obvious terrible past. The old man was my neighbor, and I was convinced he had a massive sunflower instead of a heart. I had grown into the habit of watching him open his letterbox everyday, grabbing his newspaper. But today, he opened it and saw an envelope instead. He ripped it open feverishly when he saw the address he had learnt to memorize by heart. Similarly to that one phone number that we never forget even when we set reminders to. When he saw the sloping handwriting that used to write him letters daily, his cane buckled under his weight as he staggered. Tears leaked out like acid from his eyes, leaving burnt marks on his cheeks. The wife he had left a month ago, had shot a bullet to her head out of grief. After that, something about his demeanor broke into a somber sadness, an empty madness.

The sunflower that was his heart suddenly turned gray, shaded with rain. He was never the same again, but no one was there to notice: because the old man had loved everything, lost everything, and now lived all alone in a house too big that wasn’t even his.

Today I peered through my window

And I saw two women, hugging, their embrace inking nostalgia on their glistening dark skins. A tattoo for a rare moment they’d never live again. The only “forever” that lasts is the “never”.

Some cowards say “goodbye” when they know it’s an “adieu”. And yet, those same cowards once had the bravery to say “hello” when they knew one day they would never get to say it again. Well these women, you see, had courage. They had the courage to love, perhaps like fools, but also like warriors. And right then and there, they also had the courage to say the word that few people had ever dared to speak: the infamous, dreaded, adieu. Despite the six years of thrill and magic, they would never see each other again. But they loved each other! Well, the wise man knows that “goodbye” is the lost love language to humanity and its peculiarity.

Today I peered through my window

And I saw you. You looked up to me, and for the first time, I felt seen. My heart filled up like a paper cup, to its brim, until I thought it would overflow. Your lips parted and you said: “imsorryiwishthingscouldhavebeendifferentbutistillloveyouanditsallthatmattersright?”. After a moment of consideration, I closed my window and drew down my blinds. The paper cup had imploded.

Today I peered through my window

And I saw my own reflection, alone on a glass stained with past rain. I used to think if you were born in one way, you could only be that for the rest of your life. Born a fool, always a fool. But in one flash, I was suddenly the angel-girl, the demon, the boy, the mother, the old man, the two women, and you. All at once, I had lived through a hundred lifetimes, just because

Today I peered through my window.