8B

The summer is cold. A poorly running engine that backfires upon ignition. I hold the coffee in my hands, warm up the rigid limbs from another restless night. I refuse to drink it. I’m thirsty, always thirsty.

At the end of this sentence I hear the slight murmur. Faint at first, it could almost be confused with a warming breeze. Until it becomes too bodily, too tactile. Fabrics are touching. A leg is moving, likely lazily, aimlessly.

The murmur turns into steps. Five, a halt. A grind, a crackle. Seven, a door. Six minutes, the same door. The smell of perfume, the faint beat of a pop song.

I try to focus on the weekend. The park and the birds flying on top of my weak body. The beans, the oranges and blueberries. My coffee remains untouched, the novel presence enlarging, absorbing with it every ritual. By now there are pots, pans. The smell and soundtrack to a department store.

I had fallen in love with her many years ago. The oblique sun of an early autumn day accentuating her every outline, her every feature. For a long time, I had enjoyed every instance of being surrounded by her. Every day that I awoke to occupy her dark, cornered crevasses and the warm confidence that came from her tall, lit windows.

It had never occurred to me that her one weakness—these awfully thin walls—could remain hidden for so long. Until that winter day I ran into a costly coat on the doorway. I remember nothing of a face, a figure. Just the thick coat, the scent surrounding it.

My coffee is cold, the living room sterile. I pace around until I can hear the only pleasant sound that can ever come from 8B. Steps (twelve, thirteen?) that grow fainter, that leave me alone in my state of restless reverie.