#36 Cracked Memories

by Jei Monte

The crack in Oli’s living room window had been there since she moved in. Over the years it slowly grew. She never knew how the first crack occurred, but she knew how the second one happened. A neighborhood kid’s baseball to the window provided the cracks, lines fracturing from the central hit. Lying on the sofa directly under it though was sort of like lying under a very peculiar rainbow. The bright signs and lights of the Chinese restaurant directly across from her apartment reflected through her window and with the broken glass it blended the light, muted it a bit. Oli loved looking at the lights, and listening to the traffic parading beneath her window. It’s the bustle of the city and the vibrancy of light, the beauty of the light through the cracked glass and the dark night.

Oli could lie on her sofa for hours just staring up through the cracks. She knew should have gotten it fixed a long time ago, it was insanely impractical for a city where it snowed more often than not. But she sort of liked the first crack, and now it had gotten even bigger and therefore harder to fix, though she still liked it in a way, it gave the window character. It’s memories of the past, the baseball to the window and getting her promotion, meeting and making up and breaking up with her boyfriend and a million other memories all on the couch all with the cracks watching.