By Amanda Sater (acidrain@ncci.net)
Date: 1 November 1997

Frost Tinted Windows

Today, this morning as I climbed onto the bus that would eventually
take me to school, I noticed as I sat down that all the windows were 
tinted with frost.  I glanced toward the front, where my sisters were
sitting quietly, totally content to wait ominously until they were 
dropped off at school for the day.  
I look around, I can see nothing beyond the interior of the bus.
Suddenly, I sense a change.  I look up.  I see my youngest sister drawing
on the frost.  Next came my other sister.  They were both doodling on
their windows.  I smiled.  We were the only ones on at the time.  I look
at my window.  The white hard ice on the window seems to beckon to me...
"Come, write, let your joy out...."
My sisters are writting the names of their recent crushes.  Decorating
them with hearts and smiley faces.  How sweet and young they look.
I look at the window again...It calls to me more fervently, almost 
begging me to write something upon it.  Something secret, something that
it can hold for a little while.  I once again look away.  I can't be
doing things like this, I'm 15 years old, almost fully grown.  Children
write on frost tinted windows, not grown-ups.  Slightly uneased I sit 
back and wait to get to school.  One by one all the children board the
sacred vessle that transports us to our fine institution for learning.
Each of them sit down and immediately begin to sketch upon the frost
tinted windows.  I marvel at the way they so innocently draw on the 
windows.  It's almost as though they do it mindlessly...
I look at the window again.  There the words are again.  Whispering
to me....Talk to me....let your secrets out.
It called.  I came.
I looked around hesitantly.  Lifted my finger to touch the chilled window.
Quickly I brought it back.  It was wet and cold.  Taking my finger and
placing it once more on the frost tinted window, I drew my heart's desire.
You.  I very silently and intently wrote your beautiful name upon my 
window in the early morning frost.  Such joy and completion came from
doing such a simple thing.  I smiled to myself.  Wrote it once more.
This is fun I thought!  I am happy. I now sit back, I anxiously await
my arrival at school, looking forward to yet another day of endless 
learning.  As I near my destination, I glance back at my window with 
your name so lovingly written upon it.  The letters are dripping minute
droplets of water.  Your name is desappearing into hundreds of tiny
rivers of of water, that seem to resemble tears.  I think to myself
I shouldn't have waited so long.  I should have jumped right in and 
written it.  That way maybe, somehow it could have stayed longer.