Window Pain

A story about missing someone, and how much it hurts us.

Window Pain

I hate you! I scream at the computer, wanting so much to tear the screen away from my face. Oh, how could you? I’m here, all alone, watching your happy, happy summer days along and I’m stuck here where the sun, though shining, is still stuck behind some cloud. All I want to do is go back home.

It isn’t really home �" no, not really. But it is a place where I belong, with you and everyone else. Freezing winter nights and balmy summer breezes belong to me. I can’t stop thinking of that accent that’s so strange but so homely. I’ve known you like I’ve known my own heart.

Stop, I told myself. You’ve got a new life here. Why bother crying over spilt milk?

Spilt milk? That saying is for mistakes done that you couldn’t fix anymore. Please, I hope I can go back there again. I just want to feel at home again. Only two years and it’s driving me crazy. I pray that I’m still given a chance to fix my horrible mistake �" a mistake I didn’t realize until you and everything else was taken away from me.

I force myself to stare bleakly at the screen and see you and your and my friends smiling, radiant and alive. And I imagine what I’d look like - hunched over, face illuminated by an eerie computer off-white light, with a sour look on my face �" hardly anything like that picture of you smiling while you jetty-jumped. My eyes are feeling dry and unbearable, and whenever I blink and that moment of darkness comes over me I feel dazed. Maybe it’s from looking at my laptop screen for too long, or maybe it’s from the tears that I’m trying hard not to cry.

I’m sick of looking at your timeline. I feel jealous of the happy little friends, angry that you still keep on sending me stupid invitations to events you know I can’t get to. What’s the deal with that, anyway? Have you forgotten that I live THOUSANDS OF KILOMETRES away from you?

 I feel like I’m on the different side of the universe, but the truth is, you’re only on the other side of the world. It’s funny when you take a step back and compare this to that, and I realize that I’d rather be thousands of kilometers away from you than billions of light-years away from you. 

But I can’t help knowing that I can’t help missing you. I am reminded of everyone I left behind when I sleep, when I wake up in the morning, when I do something we used to do. Is there no escape from memories?

  I wish I could suck them out of my brain �" and become like these people surrounding me right now, only knowing life here, and never experiencing a better one somewhere else. 

I put my hands in my head, blocking you out with a selection of rap music. I like rap music; it’s so full of intensity. When I sing along, I practically spit the words out. I replace every single word in the rap song with your name, and watch spittle fly out of my mouth and land on your slimy, grinning face. But then again, rap music is so fast and so rapid that it takes my breath away, and that again reminds me of you, and how breathtaking you were.

I finally shut down the computer, because I did not want to wallow in this sadness anymore. I gave my eyes a rest by staring out of the window, blankly observing the little swallows that flit between the trees and squirrels that jump so daringly from branch to branch.

I started to think. I could go back again, sometime when I grow older, when I’m old enough to have a job, I’ll do it. But will you stay the same? Still grinning, still immature, still annoying?

Will you do that for me? Or will you forget me, and go along with your days - like I know such a loud, outgoing and completely insane person like you would do.

Now I did not want to tear the screen away. I wanted to keep it close to me always, see you and hope you will see me at the other side.

With the technology of our day, they say, we can easily contact and communicate with people from around the globe. Well, I hope they’ll make a screen where I can hop into and find myself teleported to you in that place, and, maybe, smile and jetty-jump with you.

It has started to rain, and at first the raindrops came in a little pitter-patter shower, before it really started to pour. 

I watched the drops slide lazily down the windowpane, and realize that no, I would rather be a billion light-years away, rather than just behind a screen, a windowpane, watching your life turning out so happily.

And for the first time since I left you, I started to cry.  I cried as the sky cried - shedding raindrops of my own.

I wish I could be with you, side by side. Instead you and I are separated by a windowpane. You do not know I am on the other side. You go on with life.

And I wonder if you miss me as much as I miss you, so much that it hurts. Like putting my hand through a broken glass window, the memories tear my heart to shreds as I reach further in.

Window pain, I’ve decided to call it, this yearning for you even though I’m just behind a screen, a windowpane.

Hey, you, I’m hurting real bad here, because, on the other side of this windowpane, I’m still trapped in time, still in window pain.

Author's Note

This is a first draft - all comments and reviews welcome.