The dancing shadows

He leaned forward, trying to look through the glass pressed almost against his face.There was barely any space to move, but the vision had never been this blurred before. A thin film of dust coated the surface clearly, no one had bothered to clean it for a long time. Life on the other side seemed normal, almost unchanged, yet no one appeared to notice him, as though he simply did not exist anymore. He tried to overhear their conversations, but the glass was too firm, too tightly sealed. He could not even recall the day he was shut inside this confined space, though every detail of his earlier life remained vivid: the days spent with his brother and sister, the leaps they made together across the brownish pond water before their home, the narrow green pathways that cut through the paddy fields, the silly quarrels, the school days. It had been long since he saw either of them, and he no longer knew where they were.

His friends, partners in innocent crimes, must be missing him, he thought. After all, he hadn’t stepped outside for a long time now. He remembered his wedding day clearly: a new beginning filled with hope. Then came the grand years that they believed would last forever. Two little boys brought laughter, chaos, and joy into their lives. In them he saw reflections of his own youth; often, he couldn’t even scold them, for they were walking the same roads he once had.

Life is quite a breeze, happy and colorful. The anger, frustrations, and negative thoughts were short-lived, though they often created huge waves of unpleasantness. But somewhere along the way, the breeze slowed, the colors faded, and those fleeting moments began to linger longer than they should. What once passed like clouds after a summer rain started settling in the corners of the mind, turning familiar spaces into shadows. When life changed its course, he had to leave behind the job that had built his fortunes. The day of his farewell still throbbed in his memory, an inseparable chapter of his existence. And yet, years later, here he was, sitting behind a dusty glass door, struggling to understand how he had grown so irrelevant in the lives of those he loved. Perhaps the doctor had advised them to limit interactions, for his own good… he tried to convince himself.

Lost in these thoughts, he suddenly heard a cracking sound, sharp, echoing through the silence. For the first time in ages, the voices from the other side reached his ears. A wave of relief and joy surged through him. Someone was walking toward him. His heart fluttered; his spine tingled. But the joy froze into a cold knot in his stomach when he noticed what the person carried: a fresh garland. He watched, horrified and helpless, as it was placed gently over the photograph in the center of the hall, the photograph through which he had been watching them all this time. The garland draped itself around his own image like a serpent coiling around his neck.

He tried to shout, to tell them he was still here, still alive, still present.

But no sound escaped him.

Not even a whisper.