Seen Through a Window

	He rested his dirty fingers on the neatly painted window frame, and squinted his eyes to see through the window against the reflections of the bright street behind him, trying to unsee the dark reflection of his own face superimposed on the scene inside.  The room was not large, someone’s front room, perhaps the scene of family gatherings, both happy and sad.  He could almost see the children opening their gaily wrapped presents on a cold Christmas morning under the tree which would be in the corner.  He could see the dark-suited relatives with heads bowed around the brooding casket in the centre of the room.   He shielded his eyes from the glare, and peered further into the room.

	Today, the room was empty, not a special day in the events of whoever lived in the house.  The curtains which framed his view were lace, clean, and neatly tied back against the world.  The glass itself was clear and dust-free, the paintwork dry and recent.  The ceiling of the room was high, an iced cake of intricate fruit and creepers crawled around the coving, and ruler-straight regiments of gilded leaf made their attack on the centerpiece of the ceiling, a circular cornucopia of plaster fruit and flora, from which a sparkling chandelier depended, promising a glory of reflection in the candlelight.

	The walls were straight and sure, and confirmed by a regal striped wallpaper from picture rail to ceiling.  The rail itself was of the deepest wood, stained by countless dinners and evenings reading by the fireside.  From the rail hung dark and unrecognizable paintings of scenes and people, past and present.  A bookcase completely covered one end of the room, not a space or irregularity of size or shape. The books looked in good order, and he wished that he could see the titles, or once again hold a book that had been written and bound before he had been born.

	Thinking this, he let his focus ebb back to his tired and dirty image reflected in the neat window pane.  How had he reached such a sorry state?  What life-tearing events had brought him from the cozy life behind the window pane to this hard subsistence, dirty and undignified?  He shook his head.  No more books for me, he thought.  My eyes are half-blind from this vile stuff I drink every night to make me sleep.  That is a life closed to me now.  Let the young ones have it.

	As he turned to go, he glimpsed a small thing moving, there, beside the table in the room.  It was a child.  The small girl emerged from the under the table, where she had undoubtedly been hiding.  Braver now, she approached the window.  He tried to make his face seem kindly, ironing the worst of the worry lines from his tired old face as a smile broke his lips for the first time in an age.  The girl, who was no more than five years old, climbed up onto the ledge until she could place her tiny hand on the window pane.  Instinctively, he put his fingers on his side of the pain.  The girl smiled.  Tears, which had remained pent up long past their bedtime, flowed for the last time, marking the dusty street with a pure emotion they rarely experienced.