God’s Window

On Wednesday morning, God threw off his covers, yawned, and walked over to the large bedroom window, opening the long white curtains that hung. He pressed his large right hand against the window and watched his breath fog up the cool glass. His face was aged; wrinkled with wisdom, and his blue eyes shone a soft kindness. It was cold outside. The clouds were thick and the wind cried. He could feel the chill begin to creep through the glass and into his fingertips. He turned and walked over to the corner where he kept his old wooden stool. It was weak; shaky, and its wood had been scratched, chipped, and worn with age. God wrapped a wool blanket around his shoulders and gently tugged the stool to the window. He settled down on his stool, hands folded in his lap, and looked out the window down to the busy streets below. He could see the bank, the barber shop, and the local burger joint. If he concentrated, he could make out the baseball stadium through the clouds. He heard a taxi cab honk from below, watched a young man with his red ball cap on backwards selling the daily newspapers, and smelled the rank stench of the sewers creeping up from the streets of the city. He sat there quietly, watching the people hurry from one thing to another as they played their mindless part in society’s daily routine, ignorant of life’s simple pleasures.



God watched Jenny as she sped through the busy intersection, horns blaring at her grey Malibu. She was late to work. Again.
Why am I always late?, she thought. Because I stayed too long at the gym, that’s why, running on the treadmill and lifting weights. When will I start shedding those pounds? Maybe I should check online for some different workouts. Or maybe I should go on a diet. I wish I wasn’t so…
Some jerk in a beat up pickup truck cut her off.
Idiot.
Jenny juggled the steering wheel and her half-eaten blueberry bagel with cream cheese as she hurried to apply her dark black eyeliner in her rearview mirror. She swerved and the pencil slipped, leaving a thick mark across her temple. God heard Jenny sigh, dreading yet another tedious day at the office.

God watched Jonathan open the door to the same Starbucks he went to every morning for his daily dark roast coffee two creams, one sugar. Not Splenda. The little bell above the door jingled as he entered the restaurant only to find eight people waiting in line for their coffee and scones.
“Welcome to Starbucks!” greeted a young employee with long blonde hair and wide-rimmed glasses.
He stood there in his neatly pressed black suit and red tie, at the end of the line. Behind everyone else. His phone rang an obnoxious tone. He hated it every time he heard it but never remembered to change it. He was too mature for childish tunes. He answered. “Hello.” He paused. “What meeting?” Had he forgotten? “When?” His heart raced. “7:30?” He gave an irritated grunt. “But that’s in 15 minutes.” He looked up. Only one man left in front of him. “Yes sir, of course. I’ll be there.” He whipped his phone shut and listened to the young man in front of him order.
“Okay, I need 3 vanilla lattes, 1 iced coffee, 2 orange mango smoothies, and 4 cappuccinos.”
Jonathan rolled his eyes. You have got to be kidding me, he thought. Dumb kid’s probably just sucking up to his bosses and buying everyone a drink. Now he’d have to wait all day just for them to put the guy’s coffees together. Now there was no way he could make it to his meeting on time. He tapped his foot impatiently. God heard Jonathan mutter under his breath, “Could these people move any slower?”

God watched Mary pour milk onto her son’s Cocoa Puffs. Getting him out the door and onto the school bus in time was always a struggle. She ran her fingers through the boy’s hair as he ate, quickly trying to flatten the fine blonde hairs sticking up from his head from some serious bedhead. She packed the brown paper lunch sack into his Jansport backpack and zipped it shut.
“Mom, can I have a peanut butter sandwich instead?”
“C’mon Andrew, I thought you liked ham.”
“I want peanut butter today.”
Mary sighed, dug the ham and cheese sandwich out of the paper bag and reached in the cabinet for the loaf of bread and the jar of peanut butter. “Half a sandwich or a whole?” she asked him.
“Whole,” he said, reaching for his juice. His hand tipped his cereal bowl and sent milk flying through the kitchen. It was everywhere. On his shirt, on the shiny wood floor, even on the dog.
“Go change your shirt,” Mary firmly told her son, trying to control her temper. “And make sure you button it up straight.” After he had left the kitchen, she slammed her hand down on the marble countertop. Now she would have to mop the floors, wash the dog, and drive the boy to school. God heard her complaints and He listened.

God watched Sidney as she struggled on her calculus test. She’d watched the latest episode of the Bachelor last night instead of finishing her math homework. TV was just so much more exciting than finding the dumb derivative of some dreadful equation.
Why do I have to do math?, she thought. I hate math. It’s hard, it’s stupid, and it’s pointless. And after this awful test I have to go to soccer practice. She groaned in her chair. I don’t wanna run. I’m tired. I wanna go home.
She could hear the clock ticking in her head.
What am I supposed to do about this test? I can’t fail another one and I already used my retake. Mom is going to kill me when she sees this grade. Unless…
Sidney casually turned her head, letting her eyes glance off of the smart kid’s test next to her.
Oh he won’t mind, she thought. He’s such a nerd. He always gets A’s. I’m sure he won’t care.
The guy flipped back through his test, picked it up, and walked up to the teacher’s desk to turn it in.
Darn it! Now what am I going to do?
God heard Sidney stomp her foot on the grey carpeted classroom floor and slam her pencil down as she gave up on her ominous linear approximation monster.

God watched Ryan as he glared at his wife across the dark granite kitchen counter.
“Oh look Ryan!” she cried, showing him a strapless black dress. “Isn’t it beautiful? It was three hundred dollars but I got it on sale! I only paid a hundred! Isn’t that wonderful Ryan? Isn’t it just perfect?”
But Ryan didn’t care about how “perfect” the dress was, even if it was rather pretty. She had gone shopping again and spent all of his hard earned money. It was funny. Every night she would lay awake in bed and complain that he didn’t make enough money to keep her happy. And then while he was working, she would go out with her snobby friends and come home carrying bags filled with five dresses, three purses, and six pairs of studded heels.
She is so selfish, he thought. My paycheck isn’t large enough to cover the bills as it is. How am I going to afford her latest spree? God heard Ryan raise his voice and shout at his wife for being so hopelessly ignorant.

Wearily, God pulled himself up from his chilled stool and stood at the cold window, taking one last look at his city below. His heart felt heavy; weighted, as he thought of watching his people again tomorrow. He knew that it would be more of the same: same mundane actions, same attitudes, same complaints. Part of him wanted to step in; to intervene and give his people happiness again. But he sighed, turning from his window and dragging the old wooden stool back to its corner, knowing that he would not fix the city for them. As he put down the stool, he noticed sunshine gleaming from the small old window in the back of his room. He approached the tiny glass pane, dropping his blanket at its warmth. Stepping so close that his nose touched the glowing window, his gaze fell to the town below.

God watched Angel as she picked herself up off of the dusty floor of her small hut in Indonesia. She climbed over her four brothers and sisters still sleeping soundly and crept out of the room. It was already hot. The sun shone through the straw roof and the heat melted the mud caked walls ever so slightly, enough that they felt wet and you could see tiny streams of water dripping down their sides. Angel tied her stringy black hair into a makeshift ponytail and tried to wipe the mud off of her outfit; the same outfit she had slept in, the same outfit she wore yesterday, the same outfit she would wear today. The shirt was pink and there was a tiny bow in the lower right hand corner. It had some sparkles on it that reminded her of the stars she could sometimes see late at night. Her skirt was purple with ruffles and a white lacy trim. It made her feel pretty, even though she knew it wasn’t clean. She heard a rustle in the other room and turned to see her little sister stumble from the doorway, yawning.
“Good morning sunshine,” she murmured to the little girl. She walked over and gave her a soft kiss on the forehead.
“Where’s daddy?” her sister asked.
“Oh, he’s out on the farms, looking for work again.”
Angel heard her sister’s stomach growl, but there would be no breakfast today. Hopefully her father would bring them back some rice that she could share with her brothers and sisters for dinner. If they were lucky they might even get a few eggs. God watched as she knelt down and traced her name in the dirt with her right finger.
I wish I could go to school, she thought.
Pushing herself up, she walked over to the corner of the hut where they kept the shaggy old broom and started to sweep away what leaves, straw, and loose dirt she could from the grimy clay floor. God heard her humming with her little sister as she worked, their song rising sweetly up into the sky and leaking through the walls of his bedroom.

God slowly turned from the glowing window. Kneeling, he gently picked up his fallen blanket. He neatly folded it and placed it on the stool. Crawling back under the sheets with a warm heart, God closed his eyes and rested. Tomorrow he would watch the world again. Maybe one of these days they would change and it would be warm in the city once more.