How To Say Goodbye .........................................................64 What A Wonderful Word

What A Wonderful World

written by Mikaela Tormon visual by Jezaira Z. Constantino

I look into my window. Its glaring multicolored lights flash before my eyes as I stare at them with awe. Their movement is filled with much fluidity as if they are waltzing into a sweet symphony. The dynamics of their actions keep me enthralled and I cannot tear my eyes away from its magnificent light. Each of its maneuvers paint a picture, a movement, a message. The green that merges with brown shows me an orchard of evergreen trees. Sometimes these colors also form white boxes with black lines and curves bonding to create figures for me to read. Perhaps the most marvelous of all is the transition of colors from one shade to another, all the while maintaining this singular flow. I cannot pry my eyes off these opened windows—despite their aching and trembling. I continue to stare and stare. The clock’s clacking has now mixed with the faint buzzing of the computer as the scene playing on screen keeps my eyes too preoccupied to notice anything. Too many hours have passed that I begin to feel boredom creeping into my skin. This is enough. With a swift motion, I close the window shut— only to be greeted with another, which is then followed by another. Too many open windows, yet my lungs feel tight, trying its best to catch up with my flickering eyes. I try to escape this suffocating feeling by slamming my laptop shut, yet it seems I could not escape these glass panes. I look outside of my window. It was no glass box filled with multicolored pixels. Instead, it paints a picture of the truth. As I stare at what lies in front of me, I begin to daydream about the orchard trees and the deep blue sea. They were once trees that I could touch, feeling its rough woody trunk and its soft emerald leaves. The ocean was once home to a fiesta of vibrant corals and fishes. The water was cool to the touch as the waves would gently brush your sun-kissed skin. From there on, I slip into a tangent of reveries about what the world outside my window used to be. Rose gardens, flocks in the sky, the cool breeze, the smell of lavenders, and the buzzing of a working bee—these were some of the world’s finest.

Yet when I look up at the sky, I am suddenly catapulted out of this hazy state as the scent of rust hits my nose. There is hell up above as the skies are now shades of sullen gray from the burning coal. In these times rarely do the birds sing as well. All there is left is the furnace’s ballad as the heaps of steel slowly decay each time the wind blows. That, and the technicolor windows inside boxes you can soak your eyes in. Perhaps this was bound to happen. The children simply sit and stare at Mother Nature who has tried her best. Of course, she has gone through enough after these men cut and pierced through her skin. A world like this used to be a cautionary tale, but now it is the reality most have to face. Could we have stopped this madness and crumbling of the natural world? Perhaps we could have, perhaps it could’ve been better. Yet here we are, all left to say perhaps as the world burns in front us.