Dial
Silhouetted Upon the Window
It’ the holidays that are the hardest. And not only Valentine’s Day. Or Christmas. Oh, no. It’s all of them – it’s forth of July, it’s Thanksgiving, it’s even Halloween.
Halloween.
Wonder if she has decided who she’s going to be this year. I have, as per usual, being me with my keenness on dressing up, already made up my mind but she generally picked something last minute stressed out and hysterical-laughter-grabbed.
I smile at the giggle-glimmering memory surfacing in a shower of sentiments and I can envisage her smile as I stand here on the sidewalk daydreaming – or, perhaps, nightdreaming per se – looking up at her window and, well, maybe I was in the neighborhood? Maybe not. But I’m here now, on the street across from her apartment, to put it quite blandly, stalking – tracking her down in my memories, finding her the day before Halloween another year, another time, grinning. My mind is effortlessly painting onto the inside of my eyes her suppressed apologetic-amused smile, the hands held up in mock defense, the disarming twinkle in her eyes shooting down any possible annoyance within me before it ever had a chance to fall into formation. And, could I ever be angry with her? Snickering she would tell me she thought not!
Then, to my dismay, a disrupting noise dissolves the vision. My smile fades. With an expression of very justified indignation I glare at the now lit screen of my cellular phone. New message. With a click it’s dispatched to realms where it is most likely to be forgotten about then found months later only to have become superfluous whereupon it will be deleted.
As I already have the phone clutched in my hand my brain convinces the fingers to move. Dialing her number my eyes stray and, sure enough, fall upon the sole view which was my very purpose for standing on a sidewalk at midnight to begin with. My dancing digits slow down, pressing a last button before stopping entirely. I then glare at the glowing 2"x2.5" rectangle. I don’t make the call.
Instead, considering the mind has to occupy itself with something, I return to mulling upon what seems to, how annoying, refuse to leave my conscious this night. And I go back to my already established thought on how it is the holidays that are the most arduous. But to entertain myself further I delve into the reasons – holidays are the given time for realizing just how much you miss the smiles, the hand in yours and all the habits. Humans are creatures of habit. Divide up holidays – Thanksgiving with her family, forth of July with yours. Christmas partitioned between the two of you; one year is hers and the next yours. Otherwise one mother is going to nurse an aspiration to exterminate you. Well, the danger would at least be imminently.
Then it’s all you all alone and without a pending death sentence from your mother-in-law hanging over your head in case you cannot possible stuff yourself with more home-baked gingerbread. Perhaps if I concentrate I can almost taste them? Close my eyes, concentrate. Shut out the sent of the night. Maybe if I focus more?
Most likely the portrayal of ridiculousness I keep my eyes closed, goofy smile on my face, tasting, yeah, absolutely nothing. What pride I possess endorses my eyelids to slide open and nudges that curve of my lips to creep back and fade away. I return to watching her.
I can only intermittently see her silhouette shadowed upon the window regardless of her apartment being situated on the second floor. When I catch I glimpse of her I wonder.
Did she come to a decision early this year? Of course I’m aware of how it would be against her nature – or against her habits perhaps. We’re creatures of habit after all.
Halloween is a comical thing in a sense. To dress up. Costumes. I’ve always found it tragicomically amusing how it is easier to be someone you’re not to access a part of yourself, well, really be more yourself, than it is to discover who you are – just you, all of you. But perhaps all the years adding up eventually will conclude it. Once I’ve gone through pretended personalities and they begin piling up logically there would be a gap somewhere, I’m sure! As I add more and more not-mes and filling up the empty space I perhaps could get closer to learning who I am? The void that is left naturally would have to be me? Or, if not, all the realization-clear costume-unlocked fragments and feign-skin-and-faces could be pieced together like a puzzle – revealing a clear identity?
Her shadow walks past and my thoughts get rattled around. Was I thinking about something important anyway? Surely not!
Wonder if the sheep dispersed and left her sleepless. Because the lights are often on the times I stand here awaiting the rosy birth of a new day as the night draws its last wheezing breath.
The night dies, the light still floats yellow in her apartment and I pick up the same device that contracted my ire not too long ago. I dial her number. I glance up at two-floors-level. I don’t make the call.
The rest of the year there are other hands to hold and distractions suffice on weekdays. But granted I could not steal a Christmas and munch on home-baked sweets and awake in a hotel room in a different state, far away from cold-have-been mother-in-law and naïve-smile-pretty girl, when the morning arrives. How undignified would that not be!
Maybe I could borrow a Valentine’s Day though? After all, an approximation of the amount of insensitivity required would most likely tell that the requisite level isn’t to be expected to exceed what I possess. Would I lack the conscious is, granted, a whole other question.
As I stay huddled up inside my skull, mentally curled into a question mark, a weak, thin veil of diffuse light is beginning to move stealthily across the firmament – my cover soon to be removed.
A while yet the shadows will lie thick, secreting my presence. But I will soon be obliged to depart if I wish to remain unnoticed. Knowing myself I will linger until, oh no, it’s nearly too late and I will be left exposed – extradited to the industrial-grey brick, concrete and tarmac surroundings bathed in broad daylight.
Wonder if my silhouette-upon-window girl wanders aimlessly; sleep dodging her, her mind leaving her no rest. The lights are still on. Perhaps has she however fallen asleep and, if tired enough, forgotten, or perhaps couldn’t be bothered, to switch them off? I find it possible. And, hey, it’s likely that any quirks I posses never rubbed off and, well, then she wouldn’t be predisposition to fall asleep earliest at the crack of dawn.
But maybe she is still awake?
Hands scampering through pockets I keep my gaze yet fixated on her window waiting to see her pass by. Still watching intently I find and fish out my cellular phone; hitting a button, sending the screen into an aggressively-glowing light-state. My fingers hover hesitantly. I’m faintly aware of a light iron lingering on my taste buds, perhaps my teeth have punctured clean through the skin of my lip? Also do I scarcely note that the heavens has been brushed with a touch of warm orange. My gaze is averted to the 2"x2.5” source of cold artificial light.
And I dial her number.
Halloween.
Wonder if she has decided who she’s going to be this year. I have, as per usual, being me with my keenness on dressing up, already made up my mind but she generally picked something last minute stressed out and hysterical-laughter-grabbed.
I smile at the giggle-glimmering memory surfacing in a shower of sentiments and I can envisage her smile as I stand here on the sidewalk daydreaming – or, perhaps, nightdreaming per se – looking up at her window and, well, maybe I was in the neighborhood? Maybe not. But I’m here now, on the street across from her apartment, to put it quite blandly, stalking – tracking her down in my memories, finding her the day before Halloween another year, another time, grinning. My mind is effortlessly painting onto the inside of my eyes her suppressed apologetic-amused smile, the hands held up in mock defense, the disarming twinkle in her eyes shooting down any possible annoyance within me before it ever had a chance to fall into formation. And, could I ever be angry with her? Snickering she would tell me she thought not!
Then, to my dismay, a disrupting noise dissolves the vision. My smile fades. With an expression of very justified indignation I glare at the now lit screen of my cellular phone. New message. With a click it’s dispatched to realms where it is most likely to be forgotten about then found months later only to have become superfluous whereupon it will be deleted.
As I already have the phone clutched in my hand my brain convinces the fingers to move. Dialing her number my eyes stray and, sure enough, fall upon the sole view which was my very purpose for standing on a sidewalk at midnight to begin with. My dancing digits slow down, pressing a last button before stopping entirely. I then glare at the glowing 2"x2.5" rectangle. I don’t make the call.
Instead, considering the mind has to occupy itself with something, I return to mulling upon what seems to, how annoying, refuse to leave my conscious this night. And I go back to my already established thought on how it is the holidays that are the most arduous. But to entertain myself further I delve into the reasons – holidays are the given time for realizing just how much you miss the smiles, the hand in yours and all the habits. Humans are creatures of habit. Divide up holidays – Thanksgiving with her family, forth of July with yours. Christmas partitioned between the two of you; one year is hers and the next yours. Otherwise one mother is going to nurse an aspiration to exterminate you. Well, the danger would at least be imminently.
Then it’s all you all alone and without a pending death sentence from your mother-in-law hanging over your head in case you cannot possible stuff yourself with more home-baked gingerbread. Perhaps if I concentrate I can almost taste them? Close my eyes, concentrate. Shut out the sent of the night. Maybe if I focus more?
Most likely the portrayal of ridiculousness I keep my eyes closed, goofy smile on my face, tasting, yeah, absolutely nothing. What pride I possess endorses my eyelids to slide open and nudges that curve of my lips to creep back and fade away. I return to watching her.
I can only intermittently see her silhouette shadowed upon the window regardless of her apartment being situated on the second floor. When I catch I glimpse of her I wonder.
Did she come to a decision early this year? Of course I’m aware of how it would be against her nature – or against her habits perhaps. We’re creatures of habit after all.
Halloween is a comical thing in a sense. To dress up. Costumes. I’ve always found it tragicomically amusing how it is easier to be someone you’re not to access a part of yourself, well, really be more yourself, than it is to discover who you are – just you, all of you. But perhaps all the years adding up eventually will conclude it. Once I’ve gone through pretended personalities and they begin piling up logically there would be a gap somewhere, I’m sure! As I add more and more not-mes and filling up the empty space I perhaps could get closer to learning who I am? The void that is left naturally would have to be me? Or, if not, all the realization-clear costume-unlocked fragments and feign-skin-and-faces could be pieced together like a puzzle – revealing a clear identity?
Her shadow walks past and my thoughts get rattled around. Was I thinking about something important anyway? Surely not!
Wonder if the sheep dispersed and left her sleepless. Because the lights are often on the times I stand here awaiting the rosy birth of a new day as the night draws its last wheezing breath.
The night dies, the light still floats yellow in her apartment and I pick up the same device that contracted my ire not too long ago. I dial her number. I glance up at two-floors-level. I don’t make the call.
The rest of the year there are other hands to hold and distractions suffice on weekdays. But granted I could not steal a Christmas and munch on home-baked sweets and awake in a hotel room in a different state, far away from cold-have-been mother-in-law and naïve-smile-pretty girl, when the morning arrives. How undignified would that not be!
Maybe I could borrow a Valentine’s Day though? After all, an approximation of the amount of insensitivity required would most likely tell that the requisite level isn’t to be expected to exceed what I possess. Would I lack the conscious is, granted, a whole other question.
As I stay huddled up inside my skull, mentally curled into a question mark, a weak, thin veil of diffuse light is beginning to move stealthily across the firmament – my cover soon to be removed.
A while yet the shadows will lie thick, secreting my presence. But I will soon be obliged to depart if I wish to remain unnoticed. Knowing myself I will linger until, oh no, it’s nearly too late and I will be left exposed – extradited to the industrial-grey brick, concrete and tarmac surroundings bathed in broad daylight.
Wonder if my silhouette-upon-window girl wanders aimlessly; sleep dodging her, her mind leaving her no rest. The lights are still on. Perhaps has she however fallen asleep and, if tired enough, forgotten, or perhaps couldn’t be bothered, to switch them off? I find it possible. And, hey, it’s likely that any quirks I posses never rubbed off and, well, then she wouldn’t be predisposition to fall asleep earliest at the crack of dawn.
But maybe she is still awake?
Hands scampering through pockets I keep my gaze yet fixated on her window waiting to see her pass by. Still watching intently I find and fish out my cellular phone; hitting a button, sending the screen into an aggressively-glowing light-state. My fingers hover hesitantly. I’m faintly aware of a light iron lingering on my taste buds, perhaps my teeth have punctured clean through the skin of my lip? Also do I scarcely note that the heavens has been brushed with a touch of warm orange. My gaze is averted to the 2"x2.5” source of cold artificial light.
And I dial her number.