Early Morning Views From My Windowsill

It was 4 in the morning, and still I was awake. Sleep wouldn’t come to me this night, so I simply decided to stop fighting it. Twenty minutes later, I found myself reading my copy of Paradise Lost at the couch next to my windowsill on my second-floor bedroom. The reading was interesting, but my mind was restless, so my attention was soon drawn elsewhere. Before I knew it, I was looking through the window, and into the night beyond.

The street of the neighborhood was silent and sleepy. Not to mention dark. There were nightlamps on the street but between them there were dark spots where night crawled into and made itself at home. Somehow the view made me smile. I felt like an observer, a witness. Someone who could watch it all through the window and record every single moment in my memory. I would be the witness of that settlement of night between the beams the lamps projected, of the inability of the moon to break through its prison of clouds and shine its borrowed light to help push the night away, of the calmness and almost soundless atmosphere than reigned over the street and the neighborhood as a whole.

Then a pair of lights pierced through the darkness. A car. That must be Mr. Earwood’s car. He worked the night shift, and 4:30 sounded like a good time to come back home. I didn’t need to watch the car park at the Earwood’s driveway to know it was him, I knew since it passed under one of the lamps, bringing the blue color of the Civic to life. Mr. Earwood was the only one with a blue car in this street. I watched him step out of his car and then into his house, where his family would be waiting for him. After that, it was all black and white again. Black was the night; white were the lamps.

Maybe I dozed a little bit there, curled up in the windowsill, looking at the trees and the almost imperceptible movement the summer breeze produced in them. Before I knew it the night was not absolute. The sun and the first signs of morning were appearing on the eastern sky. It was still too early, but sooner than later, the first signs of life would appear on the street. Cars would soon pass by as people drove to their jobs and, an hour or so after that, to drop the kids at school. Life was finding a way to live another day.

I was ready to put my book down and make breakfast when something else caught my attention. I could look at Mr. Terry, my closest neighbor, through his open window. The old man was asleep at the couch on his lounge, and I could see him directly through his window. His head was rocked back, his mouth open, his arms on the sides of the couch. Maybe he had been watching TV last night and inevitably fell asleep right there.

Sometimes I pitied the old man. He wasn’t even that old, maybe just in his mid-sixties, but he easily looked fifteen or twenty years older. He had owned a shop down the street for maybe thirty years (or so I’ve been told. I was not around back then, maybe wasn’t even born), and had worked there with his wife all his life. Or, that was, until cancer took her life. How long ago? Fifteen years? Maybe. Speaking with him a month or so ago at the barbecue Mr. Simmons held at his house he confessed to have been a prisoner of depression for many years after his wife’s departure. He had no energy nor desire to keep running the shop, so he sold it to his elder son, Elmer at a ridiculous price. Yet, the young man did not hold the ownership of the place for long. Two years at the most. Uninterested in the business, he sold it to a law firm and used the money to escape this town and settle in New York. His actions where no less than a stab in the back to his father, but his desire for success was bigger than his shame.

Mr. Terry only fell deeper into himself and his depression after that. And the departure of his younger son, Michael, a year after didn’t do much to help. So, in total, Mr. Grant Terry had been living all alone and on his own for maybe twelve years. In the six years I had been living in this house I have seen his sons visit him for Christmas and his birthday maybe twice, three times at the most, and none in the last two years. So, I pitied the old man. No one deserved to live alone for such a long time. And, in my opinion, the man was not alright. Through the years, I could see how his mind diverged more and more from the present, as if it desired to be elsewhere. Maybe remembering the long years he spent with his wife, or maybe the time when they finally meet again. Or maybe neither of those. Maybe he was simply drifting away into whatever void we have inside our own minds.

Whatever the case, I pitied the old man, and despite having almost no sleep I felt like doing something nice for him. Once more, as I was about to leave and stand up, something inside a man's house caught my attention. The man seemed to be waking up. His head rose from the couch. His eyes were red and puffy. He looked disoriented. He looked to his right, then to his left, as if he didn’t know where he was. My heart shrank in that moment. Were all the mornings this way from him? Did he always wake up confused, disengaged from reality? He didn’t even seem able to stand from the couch. With a heavy heart, I finally stood up and decided to do something.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but the best idea I had at the moment was to cook something for him. Some cookies, with dark and white chocolate. I was well aware about the old man’s weakness for sweets, and maybe some chocolate might cheer his day up. Yeah, maybe his health didn’t allow him to have much sugar in his diet, but this would surely be a one-time situation. With no further hesitation, I grabbed my phone, stepped out of my room and headed downstairs. Once there, I turned on the kitchen lights and began cooking. I turned on my wireless speaker and connected my phone, then reproduced my morning playlist. It was only 5:30, but I could take then cookies with the old man at 7, if I was fast enough.

I turned on the oven and started the preheating for 15 minutes. In the meantime, I started making the mix. Eggs, flour, vanilla, cocoa and baking soda. Some walnuts too. Mixing and preparing took me maybe twenty minutes, then I placed the cookie tray into the oven for other fifteen minutes and allowed the cookies to cool for ten. In total, the cookies were out of the over and ready to be packed in about forty-five minutes, slightly longer. I looked for a nice plastic container for the cookies and staked them in piles of three. It was all set. I grabbed the container and headed towards the front door. My hand was turning the doorknob… Then I stopped. How could I deliver a gift in this condition? I had no sleep and must look awful. I needed to take a shower, at least.

So I did just that. I went back upstairs to my room and then into the bathroom. I turned the hot water on and waited a little bit for it to warm up. As I waited, I stripped from my sleep clothes and decided to go to the window once more. From there I could see the neighborhood again, this time lit by the bright light of the early morning. The street was coming to life with cars moving hurriedly and the song of the birds was louder and clearer now. The day seemed so calm and perfect, just another weekday for life to develop.

Smiling, I looked at Mr. Terry’s house. The drapes of the window were in the same position, and I could see the living room more clearly now thanks to the sunlight. The man was still sitting at the couch, but he wasn’t asleep. He hadn’t moved in almost an hour? Maybe he had actually fallen asleep again and was just waking up again. No, that was surely not it. I knew because of my mother how hard it was for elderly people to go back to sleep once they were awake. In a way, they were like small children again. That was not it. So, maybe all his mornings where like this? Waking up and then an hour of disorientation before knowledge of himself and his situation came back to his mind? That was a sad perspective. An even sadder one was to think he was in control of himself, all right, but unable to stand, the weight of years of work and depression pulling him down. That was almost evil. He wasn’t that old yet, and besides, how could-?

Was Mr. Terry speaking? I thought I saw his mouth moving, then. And there it was again. His jaw was definitely going up and down to the rhythm of words. But who was he talking to? There was no other car in his driveway but his. He had no visits then, unless they had come walking. Maybe that was not it. Maybe he was only talking to… the TV, or some figure only he could see. For the second time in the same day, I felt my heart shrinking with sorrow. What kind of human being could leave a man in this condition all on his own? What kind of son? Whatever that kind was, Mr. Terry had two. He not only seemed to be talking random words to the shadows, he seemed to be having an actual conversation.

I couldn’t take it anymore. It sounds cruel, but I wasn’t lying. The sight of an innocent man losing his mind was too much for me. I stepped away from the window and directly into the shower. I let the water fall directly into my face and head. If only water could leach the images I just saw. Extract the feelings of shame and, let’s face it, sorrow I felt and leave only the desire to help and the love for others. But it didn’t work like that. The shower only helped me to clean myself up, as I scrubbed my body with a soap bar and mint shampoo, not to clear my head.

Fifteen minutes after I was placing a towel around my body and another for my wet hair. I stepped out of the shower and into my room. I checked my phone for the time. 7:15. It was still early. I decided I should use the hair dryer to save some time. That was quickly done, at least to get my hair decently made. I combed it and used some cream. Then I dressed up. Finally, I was ready to go, and despite everything I just saw, I felt fresh and renewed.

I decided to look through my window once more. Mr. Terry had finally departed his couch. That thought brought a smile to my face. I was ready to pay him visit now. Yet, as I was standing up from the window some movement inside the house caught my eye. What had that been? I couldn’t tell. It happened so fast. Besides, it was barely within the area of the house I could see from my window. Never mind. The old man must be doing something on his own. I shrugged it off and headed downstairs.

Once there, I grabbed a jacket and picked up the container with cookies once again. This time I did go outside. The day was a getting warm, I noticed, and I immediately regretted wearing the jacket. Oh well, never mind. As I walked across my lawn and into Mr. Terry’s I could see his living room’s window directly. To my surprise, there was something new there: a big stain of red paint. That must have been what I saw from my window not three minutes ago. Poor old man must have been trying to carry the bulks of paint on his own until his arms gave up. It was impressive how he could stain his window in such a messy way, though.

I sighed and made my way to his doorway, passing the stained window. Once there I knocked gently. There was no answer. After some polite seconds of silence, I knocked again, this time more energetically. “Who is this is?” I heard Mr. Terry say from well within the house.

“It’s Jenna Williams, Mr. Terry, your neighbor.” I said, raising my voice. “I made some chocolate cookies and thought you might like some.”

There was a moment of silence inside the house. Then, almost hesitantly he said. “Come on in, the door is unlocked.”

Unlocked? What kind of old man left his door unlocked? Maybe the same kind of man who talked to his TV and stayed sitting at his couch an hour after waking up? It was possible. I tried to turn the doorknob and it offered no resistance. I pushed the door open and allowed myself to step inside. The house was dark, no lights were on, and the only source of light came from the stained window. I looked in that direction. The stain of red paint looked worse from inside the house. It was dripping. And a big puddle was forming on the floor. Except the stain on the floor was not the same color as the one on the window. It looked darker, almost black. And what was that next to the stain? Was that…?

“Mr. Terry? Is everything o-?”

But I never finished the sentence. I felt the hit on the back of my head and then all the light disappeared. It was all black.

…

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I was able to feel was the pain in my head. It was like no headache I had ever had in my life. I felt as if my head would burst anytime. It was throbbing so hard I could feel the pain in the back of my eyes, pushing them out of my face. The next thing I felt was the warmth of the sunlight on my face. It didn’t help my head at all. The light was like a collection of needles that was being thrown at my eyes, and that pain only travelled to the back of my head, where it was redirected to the back of my eyes, and so on.

It was impossible to keep my eyes open. It felt like hours before I could adjust my sight to the sun that hit my face. But being able to see didn’t make things any better. As I was keeping my head down to protect my eyes from the worst of the sun, the first thing I saw when I opened them was the corpse of Grant Terry next to the window, his head bashed in, his face unrecognizable. I screamed, then. It was in that moment I noticed the gag that was tied to my mouth, preventing my screams to come out with full power. I tried to stand up from wherever I was sitting at and found out I couldn’t. Something was restricting my movement. Something was holding my hands and feet in place. Then I felt the heavy hand slapping my face. It was so sudden my screams were cut off like a knife cuts through butter.

Then I saw the man. He had been standing all this time next to the window, concealed by the curtains. When I saw his face my eyes opened like plates. My natural reflexes told me to close them to prevent more light to come in and ease the pain, but I just couldn’t. The shock was too much. How many times had I seen him walking down the street with his dog, or holding his son’s hand, or his wife’s? How many times have we shared laughs at backyard barbecues? And hadn’t I seen him arriving home this very morning after work?

“Hello, Jenna.” He spoke. “Why don’t we have some fun?”

I closed my eyes, and in that moment, everything was darkness. As dark as the night I saw through my window. I just closed my eyes.