Today I sat by a window that’s more an arch but by virtue of seven thin, wooden beams mean that it is for looking and for the breeze only. A small, brown boy leant against a white bit of the building’s façade and smoked and watched me through the bars. I watched him too but only with a quarter of one eye.  When I looked with both eyes he laughed with teeth that were not distinct from one another but just a white shock (whiter than mine) and ran two fingers from his eyes down his face like tears. I exhaled loudly through my nose to say I was good-natured, or that I wasn’t sad and that neither of us was in gaol even though from this angle it looked like it.

I made coffee. When I came back to my window the bars had been boarded up with flatter, larger bits of wood. Now there was no breeze and no space for looking. I pressed at the new wall expecting it to be firm or to collapse and fold neatly but instead one plank fell backwards onto the ground outside, dead. Later they let off fireworks in the street. I watched from behind a glass door. I squinted a bit, thinking about people going blind from fireworks in the eye. I looked at the people to see who blocked their ears and who didn’t.

– Amarlie