That Window
Lit Up — April’s Prompt: Distraction
I never knew an extremely nonchalant window on a red brick building could be comforting to anyone ever, until that perpetually closed window before my balcony grabbed my attention. The window had opened.
A woman lay on a bed that was placed strategically next to the window to enable a clear view of the sky. Here was someone who seemed to have appeared magically overnight right before my balcony. She looked young. Her body was half-covered in a yellow sheet that brought some cheer to the otherwise plaintive visual I was part of, and a medical tube entered her nose. The tube could be from an oxygen tank, I cannot be sure. When I saw her, she was asleep, but while the entire spectacle had me frozen trying to weave a story about it, her eyes suddenly opened. And they met mine.
A pulse of trepidation swept through me. Did the woman know I was staring at her? I turned my eyes elsewhere, but in an involuntary impulse, they returned to the window. She knew I was looking. I knew I was looking.
It was a month of gloom for me. I was let go at work and spent my time at home, trying to find a new job while pondering over what could have gone wrong at my last one. My mind was a melee of contradictions that could never untangle themselves, let alone arrive at a conclusion. I had no friends in the new…
