Rain on the Windowsill
The leaves rustled to and fro in the whistling wind. The moon was bright in the sky, a circle of light amidst the pitch black of night. Countless numbers of stars shimmered faintly, scattered randomly across the expanse of nothing. And even more stars behind them, ones that cannot be seen. The water in the stream tinkled softly by, a constant sound that comes and goes in my conscious. If I notice it, it is loud, but I almost never do anymore. It is always going past, gurgling and spluttering constantly, the sound of millions of water droplets swirling around and encountering other objects and droplets.
A dog howls somewhere in the dense growth of forest. His call echoes hollowly against the surrounding hills and rocks. What does the call mean? Is it a call of loneliness, is it a warning to the other animals that it is his territory, or is it just a way of making himself known to the world, to tell the world that he exists.
It begins to rain. It starts slowly at first, and then bursts into a torrent of water and wind. The stream begins to gurgle louder and angrier. The rain clacks on the roof, thousands of water droplets breaking upon the wooden tiles. It sounds like pebbles. Pebbles from heaven. The rain pounds against the window I am looking out. A constant, but random pattering of water. Rain on the windowsill.
I close the drapes and slip between the bed covers. I listen to the rain. Patter, patter, patter on the roof. Ting, ting against the window. I fall asleep. I have a strange dream, but as usual, I forget it in the morning.
I lay in bed after waking, listening to the typical morning sounds: birds singing about the coming spring, the call of various animals, the creaking of the waking boards on the floor, and, of course, the gurgle of the stream. I get up and put on my robe. I part the drapes and look out at the wet, grey world. I walk down the stairs from the attic in which I sleep. The stairs groan angrily at being awoken from their frigid night.
The house seemed so empty without her. It was like an empty birdcage, the bright, cheeping bird gone. Always this emptiness. The only friend I have left is the babbling stream, the only thing that remains. I have long gotten over the grief of her death, but the cold void remains. A piece of me is gone.
I never went crazy during my period of sorrow. I didn't kill myself, I didn't blame myself, and I didn't blame God. No, I have lived with nature too long to blame God for an act of nature. I go on in my little house in the forest as if everything were normal. But the void remains.
I ignore it. I break the eggs and dump their contents into a pan. They begin to sizzle. While they are cooking I pour myself a glass of orange juice. I take the pan off of the stove and dump them onto a plate. I eat as usual without noticing what I am eating or its taste. I walk outside, under the cool shadows of pine, to the gurgling stream. I take a mouthful of the cold, clear water. I sit and watch the water running past me, millions of water droplets, all different but all the same. Endlessly moving in one direction, sometimes diverted, sometimes swirling into a whirlpool, but always eventually moving on.
That was it. Yes, of course, nature always holds the answers. My soul was in a whirlpool, refusing to submit to time and move on. But time doesn't stop for me or anybody. I have to move on to the future and let myself submit to the movement of time and nature.
The void is gone, it is repaired and forgotten, a scar of the wound. It begins to rain. Another cycle of nature. I run inside and watch the rain through the kitchen window. Rain on the windowsill.