Room with a view

The room was ambient during the night, but she had never liked it in the bright light of day.  In the evening, under dimmed lights, the amber reflections made it feel warm and inviting.  But, the brightness of the day revealed bare walls and emptiness.  It was stark and stale.  She hated it, because much like herself, she didn’t know how to fill it.

So she left it.

She had never bothered to decorate because she didn’t know how long she would be there.  Decorating seemed to imply some kind of permanence, and permanence of any kind didn’t appeal to her.

So she left it.

There wasn’t even a TV.  At least with a TV, reflections of others’ imaginative minds would have filled the space with some kind of life.  Providing distraction.  Some noise, other than the inexorable voice of her mind.  She’d always wished she could turn that noise down but had never figured out how.

So she left it.

There was a tattered 2 seater lounge against one wall.  While the opposite wall was big, white and blank – aside from two postcard-sized Banksy prints she’d bought at the markets.  The front wall had the cutest, rickety old, side-hung, windows.  They reminded her of dollhouse windows every time she turned the latch and opened them in toward her.  The windows (or one of the walls) had moved during a roof-top party she had once held and become skewed.  Ever since they had to be slammed shut and yanked open.  Like her, they’d suffered permanent damage due to her lifestyle choices. With paint chipping off their frames in chunks, they could really have used a makeover.

But she left them.

She loved to stand at the windows and gaze upon the street below, where she never knew what she might see. Celebrities and friends dined at the café below.  Hoods’ gathered on the street corner playing it cool… or tough… (Or something?)  Film crews filmed, rioters rioted and fighters pulled machetes outside the ghetto nightclub.  There was laughter to be heard, as well as live music when steel bands passed by.  She saw policemen on horseback and grandmas on scooters!  The outside view certainly made up for the void on her side of the window.

So she enjoyed it.

If she peered out her rickety window at the right time, she caught sight of people she knew and loved as they passed by.  Her friends were all around.  Buying treats from the family-owned off licence across the road, getting waxed at the salon or stumbling down the cobbled mews after too many ‘one more’ drinks at the pub.  She loved to see them when they didn’t know she was watching.  To see how they walked alone.  Or to see who they walked with when not with her.  To see if they looked for her.  To see if they looked happy when they were alone.

She hoped they were.

Her room was bare, yet she was surrounded by life and she loved that!

But one day, she left that room too…