windows

In this morning, as all the previous mornings, Sam sat at his coffee table gazing at his beautiful colorful glass mosaic window. He made this window glass, but he never submitted it to its more general purpose, he never opened it. When the light hit these beautifully organized pieces, it gave rainbow colors that lit the room. These colors changed seasonally, it was an intentional work of genius by Sam and nothing gave him more joy in his isolated life than admiring it with a cup of coffee.

He built windows’ glasses for churches, for castles, he was the top of his craft and now he is retired. He devoted the rest of his life to reading books and painting. He had never been interested in having friends or family. The things that made him happy were by the wind and sun and they could not be yielded, so he let them on their own, and he could not be happier than to excuse himself from satisfying.

The breeze twirled the autumn leaves and Sam could her their rustle and he would smile and be filled with joy, but he could never see them from where he was sitting. He lived in a small apartment of an old building at the second floor, the only room facing the backyard garden was the room he was sitting right now, with only one window.

Another morning, Sam woke up with his usual thoughts and wishes ‘nothing can disturb this beautiful morning’, he grabbed his coffee and headed to his favorite room. ‘The perfect position, the perfect lighting, what a beauty’ and setting unable to keep his eyes off the window. CRACK, the window glass shuttered on the floor. Sam sat paralyzed at first in complete denial ‘no, a rock didn’t flew through the window’, ‘no, it’s not the crown jewel of my life work shuttered on the ground’, then a burst of rage filled him.

Sam heard a knock on the door and rose abruptly. Even with all this anger Sam was not very talkative, he stood frowning at the man who had knocked on the door. The young man, forty maybe forty-five, was overwhelmed by shyness to say anything first, and seemed very guilty and sorry. ‘You’ Sam growled. ‘My children were playing I am very sorry, come here kids and apologize’ said the man hastily. Three kids, one girl and two boys, moved forward. ‘I am so sorry sir we are very bad’, said the smallest boy, tears filling his eyes. ‘Kind of an accident sir’, said the girl. ‘Don’t say kind of, idiot’ said the tallest boy.

‘Well, YOUR aim was bad’

He pocked her so she said to Sam in a calm voice.

‘Sorry sir, the pigeons flew near your window’

‘And why were you throwing rocks at the pigeons’ said Sam in frustrated anger. They started all to cry now even the tallest one’s eyes watered.

The father tried to apologize, but Sam was visibly grunting. ‘I will pay for everything, just give me a price’, Sam motioned him to stop talking then shut the door while they were still looking at him. ‘Stupid children’, he thought squatting on the floor touching the broken glass postponing cleaning it. He looked at the window, on the broken glass at the floor, on what remained on the window, back to the floor and so on.

The window never had been opened, now shuttered was a completely new view. Should he challenge his genius again, create something more astonishing. ‘But could I’ he thought, ‘my hands trembling, my sight worsen. No, it will not do. I don’t remember even how I made it and I am in decline’. Sam nerves not too long ago risen with anger took a big dip to sadness and he felt weaker than ever. The window glass was a reminder of a grand era in his life, a souvenir of an excellence he once reached, ‘I made this’ ever day he thought, and this morning it had been the last time he did, and he didn’t know.

Like a good friend, this glass comforted him in his bad days, now gone and replaced by a cardboard, waiting for repair. He grew more irritated, suffocated and in want. The room bleaker, he decided to remove the cardboard, he saw the garden from this view for the first time. Sam did not feel mesmerized or agitated by its beauty, he found it a normal garden and yet in this normal garden he saw a glimpse of the world, a world he felt a part of only now. He then participated in the plot of life, a viewer of children playing and adults chatting, with no glorifying as simple as it can be, and he felt for the first time, since many years, that a new day had started.

  The window had been fixed and Sam had nothing left to do. He went to the window, the three children who broke the window were playing outside, he stood and watched them for a while. At 11 pm, he went to backyard garden where the children were still playing and talked to them.

‘Hey, come here’ he motioned to the older one, who was almost 13, ‘did you visit the Graise castle’

‘No, we were meant to go there as a school trip, but the teacher who agreed to take us there became sick’

The other two children paused their playing and were looking at them.

‘Adam, what are you talking about with the old neighbor?’, shouted the girl. Adam looked at her without answering.

‘Tell your father to drive us there as a compensation for breaking my window’

‘All of us?’

‘Yes, you and your brother and sister’, he alluded at them and then add ‘half an hour and I will wait for you at the gates, hurry up’, he said that and stooped away.

In the car the children’s father, named Hassan, would not stop talking, as measured in the standards of Sam, he kept apologizing and thanking Sam for the opportunity to repay him, offering him money again. Sam though not in the custom of being polite and revolted by the general idea of “small talk”, only sighed twice. The children in the back were very noisy for his taste, the two youngest kept asking about the grounds and making needless comment of amazement. The older, in hurry to be mature and wishing it to come faster by pretending, tried to speak of the weather and something about politics, he remembered hearing in the news last night.

When they reached the castle, Sam descended from the car and in bold steps walked in the front guiding the others not looking back but making sure they were behind him by hearing their footsteps on the pavement. ‘Ahh, we are going this way’ said Hassan smiling, but in complete puzzlement.

‘You see this, I made it when I was about 30’, Sam was standing in front of a big glass mosaic window reaching up to the ceiling, the other four remained quiet. ‘Really! Nothing, I thought at least you would have something to say’, Sam said to them specifying the little girl. ‘it’s really pretty, I love flowers’, she said shyly.

The window glass was shaped in the form of a bouquet of flowers, colored in red, purple, and blue with a brown to orange background. ‘It is best lighted this time of day, from the late morning to the afternoon, it was the time this room would be most frequently used’. ‘It is really pretty sir’, said the little girl as if comforting him and feeling guilty for contributing to breaking his window. ‘Don’t feel bad about it’, said he, smiling, ‘you see there is a flaw nobody knows of but me and keep that a secret’ he said the last part threatening, half-jokingly, ‘this chunk should be yellow and smaller, come here look closer’. Sam sat all the afternoon explaining to the children and their father how to make a glass mosaic window, and on their demand, it was a once in week lesson, and he to his own surprise was not very disturbed by it.