What are you running towards, little friend?

A black haired boy sighs, his breath fogging up the car window, forming a misty grey splotch on the tempered glass. The purr of rubber wheels over rain-soaked asphalt is overbearing, and in this monochromatic soundscape, the car’s wobbling impacts are akin to music. The window is speckled with dozens of raindrops, sliding down diagonally, pulled by gravity and pushed by the speed of the car. They shine and flash as the car passes blinking-lights and glowing advertisements. They reflect the scenery in abstract Monet-esque strokes.

A lone drop seeps onto the top of the window. It is big enough to warrant attention, but light enough that it screeches along the glass without a distinct path or conviction. Seeming to hesitate before slipping another few centimeters.

Alastair’s gaze fixes on the droplet, curious to see how its little journey will pan out. Will its lack of direction, so akin to his own, change its fate?

His attention is redirected to his thigh cramping painfully. He grimaces, pressing his fingers onto the contracted muscle in an effort to relieve the tension. His legs are too long for the back seat. His patience is worn too thin by the constant squealing and squirming of his younger siblings who, only now, sit squashed up against his sweaty side. All snotty-nosed and rosy-cheeked, they’re young enough to have been lulled to sleep by the car’s rhythmic stuttering. Alastair is not that lucky. In the cramped claustrophobic car, he remains painfully awake.

His black hair is plastered to his face, and the only relief from the stuffy heat of the car is the cool glass of the rain-drenched window.

Seeming to sense Alastair's interest, the drop inches diagonally towards his watching eyes. It’s bigger now, having collected more water as it moved forward. The added weight pulls it down and away from his face in a crude curve. Its new path leaves it neck and neck with another drop, this one slightly larger.

What now? Will you win?

His drop, just one out of the dozens on the window, seems immensely important. Will it reach the end first? The drops are highlighted by the city lights, their edges sharp and distinct, their bodies a multitude of reflected colors.

Alastair shifts, his back sore and taut from the worn-out seats. He wants to run, he needs to get out of this car.

Out of this life.

He feels the familiar pull of necessity in this chest. The feeling that tells him to move, to do something. To start running towards his future, to disregard his surroundings and push forward for something possibly present somewhere else, anywhere else.

Never satisfied with where you are, who you are.

He looks back at the window. His droplet has fallen behind, but is still resolutely falling, despite the other droplet having already passed.

Come on little fella. Alastair is not sure what good this will do, but he feels like his droplet needs some encouragement.

His drop glides forward. Its trail forming tumbling lines and soft curves, which serve as highways for other droplets too keen on running forward. His droplet is stoic and persistent, sliding down the window, unperturbed by the changing scenery or the jostling of the car. It shakes and trembles, but moves forward as if called by some internal need to reach the end without stopping to rest.

What are you running towards, little friend?

What do you covet?

His droplet slips away, its journey coming to an abrupt, anticlimactic end.

Alastair presses his lips together and stares at the place where his droplet had disappeared with furrowed brows.

He doesn’t know what he expected.

Maybe he’d wanted a grand farewell or a meaningful ending, but his droplet had fallen out of sight with the same inevitability as gravity. Its short life Exposing with great candor how there is no grand gesture or explanation at the end.

muted and simple.

Alastair chews his lip, a bad habit he shares with his father.

It’s the stuff that comes before that matters. The action of dying is not the important bit.

How had he forgotten? He was surrounded by life; messy, uncomfortable, beautiful life, and here he was running forward, racing to the end of the window. Apathetic and bitter despite the unabashed, authentic life of his siblings who are always present to remind him of life's simplicity.

Ridiculous.

His sister shifts, pressing her head into his side. His eyes are heavy and his head thrums with a muted migraine, but he does nothing to move her away.