REAR WINDOW

 

It was in the morning. My husband and I got in the car and were going to visit relatives. We just happened to get on the same road with construction trucks. We were passing behind from one truck to another. We were reading the sayings on the rear windows of trucks to each other and laughing.

“We didn't let anyone down… They got off at a suitable place… Ha ha”

“That was so cool. So, what about this? "The driver's luck is bad, the assistant's heart is broken."

“This is nice too. They really thought it through... Aaa! Wait, there's a long one written there, let's get a little closer."

“It all happened at once” she said. However, it has been a thousand kilometers since we passed the signs.” 

I had some thoughts after hearing this. I was lost in the distance... Was it really like that? You know, sometimes people end relationships suddenly. People suddenly resign. Suddenly scream and get angry. Everything gives a sign before it happens. The things we define as “happened suddenly” … Could they be changed into “things we didn’t notice”? Then everything in life would give a sign before happening, and it would also leave its mark after it had happened.

Would a person be born suddenly? I wish I could say 'I wish'... Weren't the labor pains before birth a sign? Even before the pains start, the so-called 'contractions’... Wasn't it a sign of the pains? Postpartum stitches... Stretch marks on a mother's belly... Weren't these marks left behind?

Or the death of a person... Would people die suddenly? Wasn't old age a sign of death? An old man's trembling hands... His inability to hold a spoon and fork... His inability to remember what he ate yesterday... His hair turning white... His knees no longer holding him when climbing stairs... Wasn't that a sign that he was going to die? Or what he gave to his loved ones after his death… Wasn't that a mark the person left on his surroundings?

If this is really is a fact of life... How many signs have I missed until now? I didn't realize how many marks there were.

My eyes went to the rearview mirror of the car. Were the things that we left behind, traces of our past? Were the cars in front of us a sign of what we would leave behind? Yeah yeah. It seemed that way… 

I took a deep breath. Thinking about these things didn't make me anxious. On the contrary, it was oddly comforting. If the situation in front of me will later move past me... Then that meant that everything in life was temporary. I would never experience anything constantly in my life. This is what it meant. Constant pain, anxiety, resentment... None of these were real. A slight smile appeared on my face, and a feeling of hope filled me.

"What happened, dear? You seem to have become a little quieter. What are you thinking?"

“No, no, I was thinking of something, but it was left behind, gone.”