#202 Broken

by Cath Barton

I walk through the glass-fronted streets, past a thousand people going to work and play. None of them is you. I look in their eyes and it is as if no-one lives. Time was we lived, you and I, although we did not live well. We were destroying one another. I left and you followed. I couldn’t get away. Through every glass I saw your face, pale and miserable, torturing me. Eventually you relented. I moved away, to a warm country without glass, where people are open to one another.

But things changed, the openness closed and I returned to this northern city, where people live behind the shield.

People here say you are happy now. I am not. I want you back but I cannot find you. Far ahead on a street I see a movement that is yours, but it is all illusion. In desperation I punch holes in the glass. I splinters and its brokenness reveals colour.

I walk through the glass-fronted streets, now full of light, broken into colour. You are not there. None of the people is you, and me, I am without colour. I am lonely and my heart is broken. I sink to the ground, without care, without hope.

A man speaks in my ear. The sound is like a bird singing. I do not connect it with you, but when I look I see that things have changed. The world is whole again and I no longer need to look for you.

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