The window

It’s a small slice of life that you get to witness, walking back and forth to your job and then back to your small apartment every day except Sundays. Twice a day you pass a bay window. It has blue lace curtains along the edges and plants sitting on top of stacks of books and papers. Every morning when you walk down that street, you are never early enough to see who lives there as the blinds are raised by the time you cross over. And you never see who closes the blinds at night because they are open always until after you pass, even late at night when everyone should be asleep.

It gives you a feeling of small comfort, after all, you live in a small open-spaced apartment. You don’t have room for plants or books or anything really, you live with a couch that folds out to your bed, you have 6 uniforms that you wear to your job, and a fun hoodie you wear on Sundays. A computer that wheezes and groans when you turn it on and a small tv that you bought for $15 dollars at a garage sale.

But you are alone.

You came here because of a promise of a job and friends, but the job turned sour and the friends disappeared when you had to take whatever you could. You are making it, but it never felt like home and seeing this one random place makes you wonder if you could somehow make your place your own.

Day after day you cross the street, even when it adds an extra 7 minutes to your walking commute to the job you don’t like, just to see into that window. And one day, it’s a Tuesday, the most ignored day of the week, when you see that there is now a cat sunning itself in the window. And the sight of the white belly and paws makes you do something you never thought you would, you stop at the door.

You don’t know why you are doing this, but you know if you don’t get some sort of human interaction, you will somehow do something you will regret. So after straightening your clothes, and wishing you were wearing anything but your work uniform, you knock on the door.

It slowly opens and the person who opens it, smiles with genuine delight. “I have been wondering when you would stop by, I’ve been waiting for you” And you take a deep breath and step into the room, warm and fragrant with the scent of lemon and cinnamon and the cat comes and winds around your ankles. And you know that now you are home.