It was 7 in the morning. My brother and I were fighting. Neither of us were taller than the bathroom sink: we needed to stand on a box so we could brush our teeth and so we could see more than just our hair in the mirror. We were running late to school, so we had to get ready as quickly as possible. That's why we fought: we both couldn't stand on the box at the same time and we both wanted to be ready as fast as possible. Ironically, the fight made us late. If each one of us had waited for the other to finish, we would have arrived on time. When we were about to get in the car, we fought again over another very serious conflict of interests: we both wanted to sit in the left window. Our dad still hadn't defogged it. So, we could draw happy faces and forbidden words. My brother beat me. As always, he abused the fact that he was the oldest. So on that trip, I wasn't the one who wrote "poop" on the misted window. When we got to school, we had to park a few blocks away and it just started to rain. My dad asked us to stay in the car for a few seconds and using his jacket as a rain cover, he got out of the car and took the real umbrella out of the car's trunk. We were so small that it was able to protect us both with plenty of room. We ran while holding the umbrella stick and the backpacks that were bigger than us were slipping off our shoulders. We heard the raindrops trying to hit us but the umbrella stopped them. We laughed as we slipped awkwardly because of the wet floor and because of the weight of the school bags that were heavier than us. We got to school and my brother closed the umbrella and his teacher kept it for him.
The bathroom mirror, the misted windows, the umbrella, the raindrops, our laughter, the school and the world was gigantic. And our fight became very small.
One day I woke up and my brother wasn't worried about sitting on the side of the misted window. One day I woke up and I was no longer 4 years old and I was no longer laughing at the rain. That version of me no longer exists and will never exist again. My brother finishes high school this year. Time is slipping away from me and I try to capture it, to capture myself, I try to capture my brother, to capture that version of us that laughs at the rain. But that's already gone, none of that exists. It slipped through my fingers and only now I realize it. So, the only thing I have left, is trying to capture every minute in photos, in videos or in texts like this. I have to say goodbye to that funny little girl.
Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile,
(...)
The feeling that I'm losing her forever
And without really entering her world
I'm glad whenever I can share her laughter
That funny little girl
Slipping through my fingers all the time,
I try to capture every minute
