Observations

It was Saturday afternoon. The street was filled with shoppers. High above the shoppers a little girl was watching them. From her bedroom window on the third floor she could see without being seen. She watched as they strolled by. She watched as they hurried by. She watched as they stopped to look into the windows. She watched as they stopped to greet each other. She saw everything, how they looked, how they talked, how they laughed, and sometimes how they suddenly looked up, as if they knew they were being watched. She was too high up to be seen. Hardly anybody ever noticed her. And this is how she preferred it, just watching, not participating.

She always felt quite guilty about that. She did not know that she, as an observer, was as much a part of it as anything else, lending it extra charm, richness and vividness. She didn't realise that without her the whole scene would be incomplete. But many years later, on a summer afternoon in a garden filled with flowers, birds and bees, a woman watching it all from under a tree, did.