Tear-stained Window

There was a shadow of gray overhead. A gust of wind gushed through the two blocks of housing I was walking between, and onto the road, churning dead leaves, bits of litter and the odd branch past my feet. The first drops of the approaching downpour hit my skin, as I quickened my pace.

Moments later, I was by the window, watching the storm as it came down. Like a sheet of silver drapery, the rain fluttered and danced as it swept across the neighbourhood. Everything was still. The playground across the street - teeming with life only moments ago - was now at a complete standstill, with only the rain as its sole occupant.

I looked on at the growing storm. A gust of wind sent a splash of rain in my direction. I watched as the drops trickled down the glass, merging and joining into larger blobs only to fall faster and collide with others, one after another, an endless cycle.

I reached out a finger and drew meaningless shapes on the frost which had formed on the window. Then I thought of you, I was wishing you were here with me. I wondered if it was raining as well over there. I imagined what we would be doing if I was there with you at that moment. Perhaps we would have been caught out in the rain and would have made a dash for shelter from one building to the next, your hand in mine. Or perhaps we would have decided to wait out the storm and mill around the shops instead, soaking in the sights and sounds of the streets, mingling with people who, like us, suddenly had no place else to be.

As I began to see the mental picture of us, I pressed a fingertip on a stray leaf on the window pane as though it was on your skin.

But I could not feel it; the water on the window pane, for it was on the outside, just as how I could not feel the leaf on your skin. All I felt was the bitter coldness of the tear-stained window, a barrier invisible yet very present between me and the outside world; between me and you somewhere out there.