Outside the Glass
Act IV: Wondering
About this story
A story about what happens when your mind wanders out the window. You ask questions you can't answer and discover you're part of everything you see.
Story Excerpt
"You don't need to answer them. That's not what questions like these are for. You don't need to go anywhere special to wonder. You just need a window, a little bit of quiet, and a mind that likes to ask."
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This story is called Outside the Glass.
You're in the back seat of a car. The window is warm from the sun. Your forehead rests against the glass. And outside, the world is sliding by.
You can see trees and mailboxes and a dog in someone's yard. Standing very still, watching you pass. You watch back until it disappears behind you.
The seatbelt crosses your chest. The car hums beneath you and somewhere up front, the grown-ups are talking, but their words are soft and far away. You're not really listening.
You're not going anywhere special. Just riding. Just watching.
And then your mind does what minds do when they're left alone. It starts to wonder.
A cloud passes overhead. Fast and slow. The kind that looks like it's in no hurry at all. You watch it drift. And you think.
What if that cloud used to be the ocean? What if it lifted up from waves you've never seen? Traveled thousands of miles across the sky. And now it's right here. Floating above your car. Carrying water from a place you'll never go.
The car keeps moving and the cloud stays where it is, getting smaller in the back window.
You pass a tree with a trunk so wide it looks like it's been standing there forever. Its branches reach out over the road like arms stretched after a long sleep.
What if that tree is older than your grandparents? What if it was just a seed before your family had a name?
What if birds sat on those same branches a hundred years ago, looking down a dirt road at a world that didn't have cars in it yet? What if that tree remembers things no one else does?
You breathe. The glass fogs a little where your breath lands. You draw a tiny line in the fog with your finger. Then watch it fade.
A red car passes going the other way. Fast, then gone. But you saw something. There was a kid in the backseat. Just like you. Face turned toward the window, watching the world slide by.
What if they're wondering, too? What if right now, in that red car getting smaller and smaller behind you, someone is asking the same kind of questions?
You are two wonderers passing each other on an ordinary road, never knowing.
The sun shifts. Light slides across the seat next to you, then across your lap. You see a bird on a wire, then another, then five. Sitting in a row like they're waiting for something.
What if they can see where you're going before you get there? What if they already know what's over the next hill, around the next turn? What if the sky shows them everything all at once? Like a map made of air.
The car slows down for a moment.
You pass a man pulling weeds in his front yard. He doesn't look up. What if he's been working in that garden for years? What if those flowers come back every spring because he keeps showing up, keeps pulling the weeds, keeps making room for them to grow. What if that's its own kind of magic? The quiet kind that nobody notices.
The car speeds up again. The hum returns underneath you. You watch the shadows of leaves flicker across your arm, quick and light like something is trying to tell you a secret, but can't quite say it out loud.
And another question arrives. Quieter than the other ones. What if you're made of the same stuff as all of it? The cloud that used to be the ocean. The tree that was once a seed. The wondering kid in the red car. The birds who see farther than you ever will. The man in the garden making room for his flowers.
What if you're not just watching the world go by? What if you're part of it? Moving through it. Made of it. Connected to every single thing outside this window.
The car turns. New trees, new mailboxes. A woman walking slow with a baby in a stroller. And your mind keeps doing what it does. What if. What if. Every question a thread, every thread tied to something bigger than you can see.
You don't need to answer them. That's not what questions like these are for. You don't need to go anywhere special to wonder. You just need a window, a little bit of quiet, and a mind that likes to ask.
The world keeps sliding by. Ordinary and endless. And you, in the back seat, forehead against the glass, are a part of all of it.
Maybe tomorrow you'll wonder about something else. Maybe the wondering never stops. Maybe that's the best part.
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Keep wondering
Wonder together
After the story ends, keep the conversation going.
What do you wonder about when you're riding in a car?
Have you ever looked at something ordinary and asked, "What if?"
What's a question you don't need an answer to?
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