FlashNano2024 No. 17

This Day 17 of writing a Flash Fiction piece from a prompt every day. The prompt? - Walking on a crowded sidewalk, you catch a glimpse of your 17-year-old self in a storefront window. You can walk through the window and spend a day in your 17-year-old life. Will you?

Getting old is annoying, but better than dying. As I limped by Manora I saw me in the reflection of the window, complete with cane and gray hair, but between two maniquins, I would have sworn I saw myself at 17. Next to me was Alain, my first love. He was holding out his hand.

We had been students at Jean Calvin, yes that Calvin, the school established in 1559. Fortunately the curriculum had been updated and we learned modern subjects in place of the Latin, Greek and Theology taught back then.

I went to the University of Geneva to study history. Alain went to EPFL to become an engineer. His first job had been in Turkey. New lives, new friends. We drifted apart. Drifted not really terminated. 

Alain's parents had been diplomats in the French consulate in Geneva and were transferred to someplace in Africa and he had no reason to come back to the city. One day I realized I hadn't heard from him for 18 months. A few months later I ran into a mutual friend who told me he was married.

I ended up doing historical research for the Geneva Archives. That was the first of my grown up lives. The next was getting married and the third was being the mother to two sons, now grown. When I say many lives, people came into my life, often on assignment to Geneva, than moved on. There are people in Geneva who don't bother with the transients saying it isn't worth the effort, but I found those transients could add something to my life -- better for two, three or four years than not at all.

Maybe one in five, I stayed in touch with. Staying in touch could be as simple as a Christmas card exchange or visiting in whatever location they were in if we had gone there on holiday.

Manora's window seems to be like a television screen showing my life as a series of vignettes. Alain was holding out his hand.

I was able to touch him and he pulled me into his arms inside the window. The outside was invisible.

One by one, different people who had been important to me one time or another came up and sat down. A waitress served tea and coffee. Mattieu told me about the history books he'd written, Janine confessed she'd had an affair, left Michael and traveled the world on her own. Our sons had been good friends and we watched them play and talked over endless cups of tea or glasses of wine depending on the time of day. Mary joined us and we reminised about all the work we had put in to raising money for the turning the cancer wing at the hospital into a supportive place. We had met when we were both going through chemo and joked how there had to be better refreshments.

I was overjoyed to see so many old friends. Just for a moment I shut my eyes to concentrate on this wonderful moment. When I opened them again, I was back on the street. Alain and all my other friends from the past were no longer there.