The Window

If the window could think, it would need urgent therapy. After years of solitude, the glass that once filled it's pane was gone, and the window's wooden frame had grown old and stained with the yellow dirt that filled the air. It was dried from the inescapable heat and the colors it once brandished had long ago faded. It's structural integrity showed the cracks of time and war and, if it could move, it's slouched posture would surely represent an utter disappointment in it's creators. For the window had a history, and if a scientist could analyze the wood that composed the frame, countless discoveries would raise far more questions than could ever hoped to be answered. And if this scientist could simply sit and watch the events that had taken place through the view of the window, the scientist, too, would need therapy. The episodes witnessed through it's frame would repulse and mesmerize the scientist with violence, war, peace, love, tragedy, hope, despair, and just about any other characteristic that is so common to an unforgettable story. If it could think, it would simply sit, waiting for the next story to pass through it's frame like so many others had, hoping for some redeeming quality in the world around it.

Fortunately, the window cannot think. For if it could think it would think about being destroyed like the rest of the building it was once attached to, and if it could talk, it would want to talk to a therapist, or to the last lonely traveler it saw some countless decades ago to ask to be destroyed. The only thing left standing was a crumbled wall, alone in the blistering heat, with the once beautiful window in it's center. Without great displeasure and through no will of it's own the window and wall had become somewhat fossilized, immortalizing the window in the great stillness that now plagued the earth. The only thing that change in the view of the window was that of night and day, which cycled endlessly and rotated monotonously; any notable difference between the two was stolen with the loss of life and climate, only slightly redeemed by the moving stars in the night sky. The beauty that was once viewed in the window many centuries ago was gone; there were no flowers to bloom during the day, and no critters or streetlamps to wake up the night. There were no more loving hands to clean it's frame or part the curtains that once dressed it's interior. No more snow to decorate it's frame or falling leaves to dance through it's view. All was gone. Even more unfortunately the poor window was faced in such a direction that it was deprived in it's view from even the sun and the moon. There was simply nothing but a dirty yellow landscape, that matched it's dirty yellow frame, suspended in an endless cycle of starry night and blistering day.

Thankfully, there were no poor souls to listen to the window, if the window could talk. Any listener would grow to know an unshakable depression, utterly devastating radiation poisoning, and probably a slight cough, followed by a painful death. And they would certainly need therapy. The radiated stories it could share would live in infamy like the works of Shakespeare, and if mankind could retain half the stories seen within the confines of it's view, wars would never be fought and bombs would be dismantled in mass. There would be thoughts and lessons in the minds of men that would torture them into being decent. But these stories cannot be told as mankind was far too late to hear them. But luckily the window has no mind, and simply sits and lets creation fill its frame unhindered by thoughts or cautious tales.

If the window did have a mind, it would fight to retain the memories of the lovely things lost. It would imagine the green grass and beautiful garden that use to fill the small hill that was now just a rotten pile of yellow unmoving dirt held in view of it's frame. It would remember the neighboring building whose red bricks use to light up with the morning sun and the mailman that would stop there before walking out of view until the next day. The window would do its best to coverup it's current view with memories from its past view, but as many memories do, their accuracy and fidelity would fade; the barren landscape of today would scorch the memories of what it once was. Thankfully there is mercy for the inanimate and the window cannot think.

After many endless centuries, the window would finally take note of something, if it could think; a loud explosion somewhere far from the windows view. A thinking window might recall the war and the horrible explosions it had expereinced in it's long and endless life, but this sentient window would be mistaken. The source of the sound was something new. The explosion slightly shook the window and even made some yellow dirt shift slightly, changing the view in the window for the first time in a lost number of years. And this sound and movement may have given the window, if it could think, some form of hope. Hope that it could view something new, hope that it could see some form of life again, or hope that it could be destroyed and reincarnated as a door or wheel of some sort in a more fortunate existence. Despite its resurging memories of explosions from the past, any mind would not be able to withstand the thought of hope. However, after many more years of experiencing terrible and endless stillness, hope would once again fade back into what it once was and the window would now have another reason to talk to a therapist, if it could talk.

But in its misery it might have missed something entirely; there was a shadow directly above the window. Not a shadow in the view of the landscape through its frame, but there was something interrupting the path of the sunlight that usually beat down directly on the window. And if the window could feel, it would feel something small and gentle touch it's frame, then slowly drip down it's side to eventually fall off onto the ground. Then again, then again, and repeat untill there was a roar of repetition and the window was drenched. The liquid water would fill its cracks and invigorate its stained colors, cleansing it of dust and yellow dirt. And if it could think, it's mind would be broken in joy, trying to recall something that it had forgetten the name of after so many endless years; rain. And if it could think, and talk, and feel, the window would surely say that this is the happiest it has ever been after so many desolate years, and repeat that feeling as the world slowly came back to life over the next many millennia. As it's view changed and began to fill with vibrant greens, blues, browns, and all of the colors that it had once framed an eternity ago, the window sat still and was slowly covered in fauna. And if the window could think it would still need therapy but it would be happy, inexplicably happy after abandoning hope for so long. Luckily the window cannot think, and it did not have to endure such an infinite existence with a consciousness. It simply sat as a window from a long forgotten world and framed the ever changing and miraculous views before it.