If Only

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If Only

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The rain patters the windows. It just keeps pouring and pouring.

I look up from my book and sigh.

If only...

If only I were rich enough to buy a summer house somewhere warm, anywhere warm and go there as soon as the weather got cold. I’d never again have to make it through one more dreadful winter.

I look out. It’s so hideous. I don’t feel like setting one foot outdoors these days, and the house just can’t get hot enough.

Soon there won’t be a spot of green left on the trees. It will start freezing constantly. It will be slippery. The busses will be late, or rather later than usual, much later. I know how that goes. Last year I spent four hours waiting for one because there was a sudden snow storm. There I was in the blistering cold, the wind, my face all red... Horrible!

If only I could go somewhere tropical, just pack up my bags and leave, never looking back, never needing to, just being free.

A shrill voice snatches me away from my revelry. Dinner. It’s time to clean my cage.

I’m not nearly busy enough not to hear how the pattering gains force as hail starts to gush down from the sky. It beats the leaves off the bushes. I get the plates, the glasses, I can’t do it loud enough.

If only..