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The Window

By Sofia Benares

I sense movement from the corner of my eye. A twitch. It is nothing more than that at first, but as I focus my gaze the twitch increases in intensity; the being vibrates, pulsates, following the tremors of the transparent surface to which it clings. Helplessly, I watch as these tremors unhinge its grip and the being slides down… down towards a smaller kinsman which it instantly engulfs in the manner of a phagocyte. Now, almost doubled in mass, the phagocyte slides down further and faster, engulfing even more helpless beings along its perilous route. From above comes another twitch; this small twitch will start yet another cycle, spawn yet another phagocyte upon the glass.

The battle for windowpane dominance begins.

I watch as the raindrops on my window compete within the tiny, anarchical society I have created for them in my mind. They race; they battle; they fight; each crystalline orb has a life of its own. With their glorified existence, too, comes my own glorified role as creator and dictator of their world. The wheels of the car crackle over a particularly rough patch of asphalt. The intensified tremors cause the raindrops to somersault in their places. Some drops are obliterated into sprays that mist the surrounding air. It seems my liquid world and I have lost some of our gladiators to the road.

The light dances on my body as the raindrops do on the window. The water on the window refracts both the sparse rays of the moon and the not-so-sparse rays coming from the car headlights of the procession behind me; my body is spotted with shards of light. It all seems very euphoric, this marriage of light and rain. I wonder if any of them—any of the men making up the shuffle of automobiles behind me—notice the rain. To them, it is probably just another dreary aspect of the funeral procession – and how fittingly, somber, this rain!—through which they have to suffer. I wonder if they notice the wars raging on on their respective windowsills. I wonder if they notice the water at blows with itself.

I bet Maya would have noticed; I look to her but the large arrangement of flowers creates a barrier between the hearse’s rear and me. If only they let me unhinge the casket and release her body to the downpour—she would have liked that, or at least, preferred it to the solemn ceremony that was happening instead.

A raindrop slides down the glass and swiftly collides with two smaller orbs—simultaneously. The drop undulates precariously from the dramatic growth until its clutches are pried apart and it drops away from the glass and to the ground below it. From within the confines of my car, I do not hear the impact.
The battle on the glass continues and I watch, enraptured by the chaos unfolding on this two-dimensional plane. Meanwhile, the procession shuffles on behind me.