one

   It was a brisk November morning; the sun was grey, birds were silent, and somewhere in the city, someone was being born.

   That corner of the world held a particular anonymous apartment in the heart of the bustling metropolis, in a neighborhood that was slum to few and home to many. The room was white and fading; stains of age began to seep down the walls from the ceiling; the floor no longer a sparkling white linoleum but a dry beige, untouched by dirty feet. A single lamp hovered overhead, embedded into a twirling fan from days of noir. The singular window of the room was barred, a view of the street outside separated by a mere pane of fragile glass.
   At that particular point in time, consciousness had been bestowed upon him by forces unknown. His eyes saw, and stared into the progressing light of the rising sun, veiled by a low grey ceiling. In his mind, it was that point where memories begin, and where the universe begins to exist. There was no recollection of a time previous, of a name, of a number, only of a sudden existence perpetuated by nothing at all. Craving and wont invaded his mind, stealing away any sense of incomprehensibilities of the realities in which he had existed for such a time.
   He stood in the center of the room and felt the sunlight warm his body. He wiggled his toes on the cold floor, a positive sign of existence. He turned his head and stretched, as if awaking from a long sleep. He stumbled over to the window in front of him, putting his hands and face against the glass. Like a child looking into a toy store, he looked out at the new world before him, in its infinite brutality and vulgarity. People walked by without a glance, as he stared out at them with wondering eyes, exploring in his mind the infinite possibilities of their identities. The moment passed, and the onslaught waned until there were little left to walk the streets but vagrants and rats.
   His stomach angrily protested, and for the first time he felt the pangs of hunger. He walked around his room and sought to satisfy, but nothing existed there in his tiny void of space. He walked to the window and scrambled at the edges, trying to peel the layer of glass away. He found the latch and slid the window open; the meager mid-morning air blasted his face, catching him off guard. After staggering for a moment, he approached the windows and gripped at the bars again, looking out. As people walked by he opened his mouth and tried to speak, but hoarse gasps came out. Words existed in his mind, but not in his reality; his statements were confined to his internal.
   A homeless man in a green coat and brown vest passed, pushing a shopping cart of empty tin cans. His bearded face sneezed into the air, and he wiped at his nose with a dirty sleeve. A can fell out, and the homeless man paused to pick it up. He turned to the window and studied the figure staring out at him from behind the wrought iron with interest, and waved a single gloved hand. The figure from behind the bars and glass returned a sad, lonely wave, and the shopping cart full of in cans continued down the street towards the horizon, green-jacketed man in tow. He heard the homeless man sneeze again, and then he was gone from sight and mind.
   He stuck his arm through the bars into the air in front of him. He grabbed weakly at nothing, and then let his outstretched hand fall limp against the concrete wall. He leaned his head against the bars, the cold metal branding his forehead. His jaw involuntarily moved up and down, trying to force out a syllable, but nothing escaped.
   More anonymous figures passed, indifferent to the strange unspeaking man leaning out the window. No one stopped, no one cared. After awhile, he began to stare into space, failing to focus on anyone in particular. His hand remained dead against the concrete, his forehead against the bars; they had begun to make imprints in his forehead. Sweat dripped off his nose and his muscles grew sore from lacking movement.
   A young girl in a black jacket lined in pink walked by, and paused in front of his window. Her handbag was black, but light; empty, from an outsider’s perspective. She approached the window and wrapped her hands around the iron bars. She brushed the hair from out of her face, and peered up into his unblinking, unfocused eyes. She waited, and he stared into the distance.
   After a few minutes, she whispered something. He blinked and looked down at her, through the bars. She brushed the hair from her face again and smiled. Curious, he tried to speak again, but only hoarse whispers came out.
   “Are you thirsty?”
   He croaked. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a bottle of water, uncapping it and handing it to him. He took it gratefully and drank, drawing in the cool clear water into his dry throat. He gave the empty bottle back to her and she smiled again, slipping it into her handbag.
   “Hi.”
   “Hi.” The greeting came out dry and raspy, but quiet; as far as his consciousness was concerned, it was the first word he had ever spoken.
   “My name is Maura.” She stuck her hand through the bars, and he took it. She shook, and he followed suit.
   “I don’t know what my name is.”
   “Why not?”
   “I don’t know. I have no name.”
   “Of course you have a name. Everyone has a name.”
   “Except me.”
   “What did your parents call you?”
   “I don’t know my parents.”
   “Why not?”
   He struggled, but couldn’t find the words to explain. She waited patiently, and he gave up trying. He shrugged, and she nodded.
   “So what are you doing?”
   “Being.”
   “Being what?”
   He shook his head. That was it. “I’m hungry.”
   “Why don’t you eat?”
   “I have no food.”
   She reached into her handbag and pulled out a bag of popcorn. He took it gratefully and tore it open, scarfing them down.
   “When was the last time you ate?”
   “Never. I was born this morning.”
   She was confused.
   “Born this morning?”
   “Yeah.”
   She waited for an explanation, but again, he could offer none. He shrugged and finished the pretzels.
   “So where are you going?” He handed Maura the empty bag.
   “Away.”
   “Away to where?”
   “Wherever my legs take me.”
   They stood in silence; he clutched at the bars and looked down at her. She brushed the hair from her eyes again and looked around nervously. The lunch-time crowd had begun to flow into the streets.
   “I think I have to go.”
   “Why?”
   She stepped quickly away, and waved to him. He returned the wave and called out after her.
   “Are you going to come back?”
   The last thing he saw was her ponytail bobbing behind her as she hit the pavement running.

   He sat in his corner, the ceiling fan idly spinning. He looked around quietly, waiting for something to happen. The neon lights from the outside bathed the pale room in pastel greens, blues, and pinks. He rocked and buried his knees in his corner, working his jaw, as if about to say something to the infinite silence of his cell. A siren sounded from outside. The cool evening air had seeped into his dark room.
   A light tap at his window broke him out of his self-induced trance. He jerked up and quickly scrambled to his feet, tripping on his own feet running to the window. He hit the wall and glass full force and looked down into the darkness below.
   “Hi.” She looked up at him, bathed in the neon lights, brighter and more alive than anything inside of his room.
   “Hi. Where did you run to?”
   “The park.”
   “What was there?”
   “People.” She grabbed onto the bars and pulled herself up on her tiptoes, leaning as close against the bars as she could. She tried to look into his room, but it was dark and she saw little except for their shadows playing against the wall.
   “Do you ever leave your room?”
   He shook his head.
   “I want to see your room.”
   “Then come see it.”
   “Which one is it?”
   He shrugged.
   A bottle shattered across the street. She turned and panicked.
   “I have to go.”
   “Wait –”
   She ran and disappeared into the darkness.

   As quickly as it opened, the door slammed shut as Maura ran into her room and slammed into the couch. She lay there, staring at the black ceiling above, dropping her handbag to the floor. Her wide, frantic, panicked eyes scanned the cement slab hanging over her for a sign of clarity, but she found none. She curled up into a fetal position and stared at the red patterned fabric on her couch, listening to the quick beating of the blood in her ears, blanketed by the darkness. A cat screeched in the alley below; she twitched. She was tense.
   An indeterminable amount of time passed. Eventually she calmed, and shifted from a fetal position to general flailing about on the couch. She groped the coffee table next to her, grabbing a remote and pressing the power button. Faintly, a song echoed softly across the room, haunting the silence. She calmed, and her eyes grew more and more alive. She finally focused, and sat up quietly. She looked at the digital clock on top of the small TV; three faint digits stared back, challenging her. She turned on a light and dug through her handbag, pulling out various canned food items, water bottles, and her camera. She reached into her pocket and fished out three canisters, two of which contained rolls of film. She stacked the food and water onto the coffee table and slung the camera over her shoulder. She stacked the film canisters with a small pyramid on an end table nearby and walked into her room.
   Unlike her well worn living room and kitchen, Maura’s room was small and sparse. A mattress sat in the corner; the bed sheets were old, the springs were worn out, but it was comfortable and warm. Against the other corner sat a low table, sans legs, set atop stacks of books and cardboard toilet paper tubes. Her camera sat here, along with a shoebox with scores and scores of her negatives. Her wall was originally white, but the old paint was chipping away. Hundreds of photographs, some faded and yellowed with age, and others crisp and new, were taped onto the walls around her room, a makeshift ever evolving wallpaper to hide the old fragility of the building that was collapsing around her.
   She lit a candle and collapsed into her bed, hiding her face in the sheets. She had no pillow; she couldn’t sleep with one. She looked at the pictures on the wall that were readily visible to her, illuminated by the candlelight.
   It had been a long day, but she was not ready to sleep. Not now. Too much had happened, and at the same time, nothing had happened at all. For no reason other than variety, she had taken a different route to work, through an old neighborhood where her friends had been born and grew up in. Most of her friends had already moved on, in either senses or, in a few cases, in both senses. She was tired of walking the same route, and as a consequence, she had found someone that had intrigued her. He had no name, no identity; she knew once a friend who lived there, but the building had been abandoned for years. To find a stranger, much less one wearing what were essentially prison clothes, in an abandoned building hanging out of the window as her friend used to night after night had struck her as simply a coincidence beyond the control of the altogether powerful Universe. She found it unusual that he had no name or identity to speak of, and that he failed to explain his situation. She was either afraid or didn’t care enough to ask what he was doing there. She didn’t mean to go back, but her curiosity had willed her back to that iron window to talk to the stranger without a name or identity, like the other million inhabitants of the city. Unlike the million inhabitants of the city, though, there was something different about him: he lacked the resigned aura of the denizens of what she liked to think to herself as the Collective Underworld. His eyes were clear and blue, and they actually saw things; the people she had dealt with merely looked at things.
   She tossed and turned in the night. A breeze that had slipped through the window blew out the candle, saving her the effort. She mulled over her day, trying to ignore the stranger in the window at the abandoned apartment building, thinking instead of the hundreds of people that came in and out of the pharmacy photography counter. She encountered all sorts of people, with all sorts of pictures on her film. That was the one thing she loved about her job: the random assortment of images that came with each roll. Each roll had a particular personality, which often associated with the personality of the person taking the pictures. She enjoyed looking through the developed film, despite the strange and sometimes disturbing pictures some people took.
   Her job had introduced her to the world of photography, and she loved taking pictures. After the world had abandoned her, it was all she had left. She found the cataloguing of a vast immensity strangely satisfying. Between her job and her devotion to photography though, she felt something missing. She felt restrained, although nothing was holding her back. She was missing something, she could feel it, but she didn’t know what she was missing. Something big. Maybe it was purpose, maybe it was focus, maybe it was clarity. Maybe she was tired of the city in all of its great vast expansive glory, and craved for the middle of nowhere with nothing above her head but the desert sky in all of its great vast expansive glory. Maybe she craved the nothingness that the Collective Masses of the city lacked. Maybe she craved to breathe.
   Maybe Maura was, plainly and simply, sick and tired of her little corner of the universe.
   She was cold. She huddled under the sheets and blankets, staring at the dark ceiling above, the eternal faint hum of a nocturnal life echoing up from the alley through her window. It had been awhile since she felt it, but she felt it now. Her room grew more and more empty the more and more she stared at it. She tried to close her eyes and force herself to sleep, but the thoughts echoed in her head louder than ever before.

   She slipped off her jacket and balled it up under her head, burying her face in it. Tonight, more than anything in the world, she wanted a pillow.