Windows
After the misty drizzle, the dampness of the high-flying bird’s plumage weighed it down and it flew rather clumsily, albeit still swooping down from the heavens with a majestic grace. Through the eyes of the high-flying night bird, the hazy tonal structures of centuries-old gothic, baroque and renaissance styled structures were interwoven into the sparse lattice of lights emanating from the windows in this quaint city. This city still retained the little remaining remnants of its long-lost magnificence; cloaking its former haughtiness as a much-loved bustling city behind a modest mien.
All the whilom ruckus of the long-gone crowds had erased their presence from the cobble-stoned streets, where years ago, people still hackled at make-shift stalls selling gewgaws. Shivering, the bird brings us closer to the ground. The bird’s feathers gently grazed the leaves of a row of European beech trees, whose branches bend to reach to ground with copper brown foliage as its crowning glory. Coming to rest on a windowsill encrusted with intricate hand-carved wooden ornaments as to appear pompous in its ambitious design; which seemed like the epitome of artifice in the Baroque period.
Vera Lynn’s ‘White Cliffs of Dover’ crooned softly in the room, resonating through the transparent glass panels which separated the warm insides from the cool wind caressing the outer panes. The bird cocks its head, tilting it towards his left to peer through the mist-laced window. To our surprise, an Asian woman donning a heather-gray cashmere sweater and lounge pants is hunched on a chintz chair, reading a Jack Kerouac novel. The little warmth provided by the meager flame in the fireplace proved to be of little to no help. Suddenly, the bell rings. The lady hulled herself out of the warm embrace of the chair; our eyes are forced to follow that of the dewy-eyed bird, its gaze intensifying as it locked itself onto the willowy back view of the woman.
Oh no. The bird senses an impending ominous situation. The Asian lady casually opens the door with a resounding ‘click’ of the lock. Alas, the person outside was just a petite brunette sporting an unusually large chignon at the nape of her neck. The brunette had strong arched eyebrows: rather a misfit with the rest of her child-like features and the air of puerility she brought to the atmosphere. Yet despite the innocence of early youth exulted, it was the peculiar way the corners of her lips curled into a cat-like smile – you could almost sense devil in the shadows of her lashes. Unable to hear the conversation between the two of them we are forced to look on helplessly as our fear for her safety escalates.
It was as if an idea had rammed itself into the bird’s head. It moved its scrutiny towards the brunette’s handbag. Her right hand seemed to be clutching something inside whilst her left played with the long bag strap quirkily, as if to alleviate the saturated anxiousness in her chest. The conversation played on and it was awfully apparent that the severity of their conversation had heightened for the brunette raised her eyebrows accusingly like that of a mother unconvinced by the blatant lies of her notorious child. Retreating, almost cowering, the Asian lady shook her head gently and used her palms to form an invisible barrier between them – in an attempt to perhaps assuage the brunette’s deepening anger. Yelling words inaudible to our ears, the brunette’s pallor accentuated her blood red lips, parted to spew out anger. And slowly, she extracted the object she had been hiding so cautiously in her bag, little by little.
Could it be…? We struggle to move the bird, but it did not even budge. There must be a way to stop this! There must be! Soon, we relented for our only mode of communication with the world was through its almond-shaped eyes. The swift movement of the brunette’s hands, the sinister smile which materialized on her face – full, broad and merciless – it was all too fast! And the bird flew away in panic. Our heart sank in despair when the gunshot reverberated through the windows. We were distraught but we could sense the sudden nonchalance of the bird, and it obviously did not give two hoots about the woman – long dead and gone.
The bird continued flying; its movements became nimbler now that it was markedly drier. The woe-be-gone city was left behind and the lady was left to rot. Its wings carried it farther across forgotten dusty roads in the gloaming, when a man cannot make out if the nebulous figure he glimpses in the shadows is angel or demon, when the face of evening is stained by red clouds and wounded by lights.
Glaring lights from the big city screamed into the eyes of the bird and it was forced shut its eyes in horror, rendering us temporarily blind. Following the sudden burst of colours was the cacophony of voices yelling, and chuckling, and the squawking of wide-throat vendors promoting their goods through honey-tongued words promising sweet-nothings. Once again, the bird searched for a reasonably clean windowsill to rest on. Only this time the windowsill was a far cry from the beautiful carvings which adorned the former. The latter was presented in modern minimalist chic design, and the window grills were that of ice-cold stainless steel metal.
Oddly, the same Vera Lynn song was playing inside the apartment. Was the bird attracted to the odd coincidence connected to the previous occurrence? As we stared through its glassy eyes and through the slightly open windows, something catches our attention. Laying there quietly on the mantel was a photograph, intentionally blown up beyond suitable proportions from its original size. The image on the photograph was rather disturbing: looking every bit like people possessing sanguine dispositions, the brunette and Asian lady was locked in a warm embrace. At that point in time, no bedlam could have broken the hug they were offering to each other. They poured out both heart and soul to the other and it was rightly reciprocated – even closer than what one might use to describe bosom friends. The photograph spoke volumes about their relationship, and it was strongly refuting whatever we had witnessed earlier that evening as fragments of a mere imagination.
Much as we try to make sense of the situation, we were left confounded. Looking through the windows, the door swings open in a flurry, a flustered man tumbles into a mess on the ground. Picking himself up with much haste, he attempts to dial a number on his cell phone. This man was palpably distraught, and it took him much willpower just to control the trembling in his fingers.
“K-K-ara…that lunatic! I had intended to leave her for… I –” the stutter was followed by an abrupt pause.
“…didn’t think she meant what she said,” The man fell silent.
In the back ground Vera Lynn’s warm and clear voice sang, “There’ll be love and laughter, and peace ever after…”
We never knew what actually happened, but could only make useless deductions, for the fickle-minded bird soon lost interest in the man’s pitiful gasps. It glided away to an idle hover and through those brightly lit windows we saw joy in the faces and heard ebullience in the voices, through the dim ones we saw an occasional elderly hunched over a miserable meal as their life ebbed away painfully or a tired individual trying to get much-needed sleep.
In the eyes of an insignificant bird people lose their privacy and things not meant your eyes lay vulnerably exposed, for there are windows – often neglected; the fabric of the curtain rarely even graze past some. Tonight we have witnessed odd occurrences, which would never have happened without the existence of windows, where we sometimes unconsciously hang our dirty linen near or do things that would bring us to shame. The things that happen behind locked doors – if walls have ears, could not windows too? For windows are like a pair of living eyes staring into the part of you; you so desperately shield from the outside world.
And once again the bird soars into the sky in search of another windowsill to rest and ruffle its feathers on, or perhaps it wanted to feast its eyes on what was happening on the other side.
