Locked Away

Sitting languidly at my desk, eyes drifting from writing, I look out my window onto the dreary grey street. It’s wet from rain, dark under the autumn evening, low below my window. The street is almost empty, when I see him. He walks down, looking ahead – always ahead – and going somewhere I do not know.

I sit up from my desk, put on my coat and leave my apartment, walking down the stairs and out onto the wet footpath outside. I tug my coat closed to keep out the cold air. Scanning down the street, I see him walking, and begin to walk after him.

He follows the road as he pleases, taking turns into alleys and streets, not all pleasant, and when I feel like I am just about to reach him around a corner, I turn it, and he is once again far away. 

His hasty evening walk takes us far from home. At one point, he stops, and bumps into another man walking along. I come as close to them as I can without being seen, and listen.

‘And how’s it going, then?’ asks the other man, the transient one, with a hopeful smile. ‘The illustrious, the brilliant – the renowned.’

‘Ah,’ mutters the first.

‘Well?’

‘It’s going.’

‘Is it?’ – under orange lamplight, the man looks surprised – ‘it hasn’t been going for some time now, has it?’

The first doesn’t say anything that I can hear.

‘Any closer to the end?’

Again, the first says nothing.

‘Well if you’re going, you must be closer.’

‘Yes,’ he finally mutters, ‘I suppose so.’

A second of silence passes.

‘And the wife?’

‘Who?’ asks the first, caught from a daze.

‘Your wife,’ repeats the other man, ‘how is she?’

‘Ah,’ says the first, but doesn’t answer the question.

The men exchange pleasant farewells before continuing their respective ways, and I return to following the first. The transient man disappears down an alleyway before I manage to pass him by.

As he starts to walk away, I hear footsteps on the empty road behind me. I turn around, and watch a silhouetted figure walk down the road and stop under a lamp. He looks at me patiently, and I know he’s been following me. We look at one another for only an instant. I have nothing to say to him. I turn around and continue my pursuit.

I catch up to him and follow him, watching as he reaches his apartment building and walks inside. I briskly catch the door behind him.

Walking in, I see the back of his legs disappear up a staircase at the back of the lobby. There is a table to the right, cardboard pigeonholes on it serving as letterboxes. 

Lingering there, I walk up to the pigeonholes. I go down the list of names and find that he has not taken his mail. I take out the letters and comb through them, hoping to learn more about him.

When I am checking the mail, my phone rings. I know who it is without checking the caller.

‘Hello?’

‘Honey,’ says the soft voice on the other end, ‘where are you?’

‘You already know, dear,’ I tell her.

A moment of silence follows.

‘Please, come home,’ she says.

‘Dear…’

‘Please…’

I can hear tears in her voice.

‘I have to go now, dear,’ I tell her.

‘Please…’

I hang up the phone, placing it back in my jacket pocket.

I finish reading the mail – there is nothing to be learnt from it. I have to go up the stairs, keep following him into his home.

As I approach the bottom of the stairs, the sound of a shutting door turns me to look back at the entrance. Standing statically before it is him, the silhouette from the street. He is looking me in the eyes. In the bright light of the lobby, I see him clearly.

He is vibrant, his features beckoning. There is almost – almost, not quite; a little out of reach – a semblance of pleasure in his expression. He looks to be in search of something, and I know that he is. When he looks at me, the little pleasure drains, and his eyes go dewy in inquiry, but he says nothing. His lips remain sealed, and he only stares. 

I give him another look, up and down. Still, I have nothing to say to him. I look away and proceed up the stairs.

When I reach some floors above, I find his apartment door. I take out my ring of keys. Most of them don’t work, but finally I find one that opens the lock.

The apartment is hollow, and barren. There is little furniture in the rooms, no paintings or plants around, the echo of my movements the only sound to fill the halls. On the coathooks there are two coats, below them two pairs of shoes. The air rests with heavy dust, disrupted by each of my breaths.

I walk deeper into the apartment, finding the door that leads to the room he’s entered. I creak the door open, ready to make myself known.

I find him sitting in a chair at his desk. There is a glass of whiskey in his draping hand, its bottle on the desk. He is facing away from me languidly, and doesn’t notice me enter.

‘Hello,’ I say.

He doesn’t stir.

‘Hello,’ I repeat, louder, but still he doesn’t move.

I walk towards him, till finally, for the first time, I see his face. It is tired, his eyes are distant. Even once I am right next to him, he doesn’t move. He doesn’t see me.

‘I’ve come to ask you something,’ I say. ‘I was hoping that you might have an answer.’

His lower lip drops, just before the glass raises and pours the remaining brown sugar down his throat. The empty glass thumps as it hits the desk.

He pushes out his chair, stands up and turns away from me. He walks ahead – always ahead – to the door in the corner of the room. He opens it and disappears behind it.

I stand still in the empty room for some time. I look at the chair, the desk.

After enough waiting, I sit down in the chair. I pull it in under the desk, finding the glass and pouring it half empty. I take a quick sip, and get back to work.