His apartment was on the fifth floor, the top floor. There was no elevator and some days the stairs seemed like a week long journey over mountainous terrain and better left un-attempted. He stayed inside a lot. He would read the newspaper that was left on the mat outside his door each morning or re-read a well-thumbed book from one of the many small bookcases that dotted his apartment or he would simply sit in his favourite armchair pulled up close to the window and watch the comings and goings of neighbours and strangers alike. Five floors wasn’t so far up that he couldn’t see the dilapidated faces of those zipping past in buses, look down on a few birds as they nested in the tops of nearby trees or look in a few windows and see what someone had settled on for dinner.

He wasn’t a complete shut-in, there were some places he liked to go. He liked the old covered market where he could buy vegetables grown in one of the city’s communal gardens, a section of land divided into small plots where families could grow enough to take the edge of the monthly bills. It was filled with raspy voices boasting of the deliciousness of their bulbous turnips or golden parsnips. A few of the shops beneath the patched and re-patched roof sold a variety of knick-knacks that included LPs in faded or torn sleeves or books that were equally aged. Even though he had been through their collections so many times he still liked to look, there was every chance he could be surprised by something newly traded. There were even places to sit, buy a glass of coldish beer and enjoy a little of the threadbare atmosphere. He would come to this place when he was starving for the contact of others. It wasn’t an everyday thing, nor even an every week thing but those times would come and to that market he would trundle.

The collection of books in his apartment had slowly grown as had the stacks of newspaper, most of which had begun to yellow with age but the dust would be wiped away regularly and the sink was never filled with anything more than a single cup, a slightly sullied plate and the knife he’d used to spread the margarine. He was pedantic about cleaning, he had a lot of time on his hands and didn’t feel comfortable unless the kitchen bench, the fragile looking dining table and the desk pressed up against one wall, were free of clutter. There wasn’t much else he did with his time apart from read, watch and wait so the only constant battle he had was with yellow pollen in the summer time from the trees that lined the street below and the ever present by product of inner city living that tended to coat everything he owned with fine black grime. On hot days when he was forced to leave the windows open, attempting to coax in the smallest of breezes that passed by, would result in dirty smears across any surface he dragged a wet cloth across.

He wasn’t exactly sure what it was he was waiting for. He’d had that same feeling, burrowing a deep and permanent hole in his guts since he was small. Once he started working, waking early, coming home late, sleeping through his weekends, the feeling had shrunk to little more than a reoccurring niggle. It was always there but most of the time it had been easy to ignore. Once he finished work, forced to take early retirement on medical grounds in his early-fifties, the feeling had returned, blossomed. If he had to make a guess he’d say that feeling, that hollowness inside him that wanted filling was nothing more than waiting for death, as that seemed about the only thing left for him to do.

There were days like today when that seemed like a very real, very close possibility. The ache that had seeped into the small of his back had edged its way down his thighs, expanding into the joints of his knees and left him barely able to walk. Waking in the early hours of the morning, before the sun, while the street lights still painted his curtains in pools of fetid orange, he knew it was going to be a bad day. He had tried twisting to the side, hoped to make a quick run to the toilet and get back into bed before sleep had completely fled but pain erupted within him, a pipe bomb filled with nails ricocheting through his insides. He lay still, caught his breath, allowing beads of sweat to gather on his forehead, form a rivulet that gathered momentum until passing in front of his ear and fall away onto sheet beneath him.

He reduced all movements to tiny explorations, testing the limits, a hand sliding across his belly, one foot edging closer to the rim of the bed, shoulders turning centimetre by centimetre until he could clearly see the chair resting unperturbed beside the window. He eased an elbow underneath him and little by little moved into a seated position, his feet gently resting on the floor. Sweat drenched the t-shirt he’d worn to bed causing it to cling to his slightly arched back. There was no way he was going to get it up over his head so hoped the day would be warm enough to dry it before giving him a dose of the flu. He eyed the chair again as a hungry man might spy left over pizza in the fridge or a ditch digger might reach for a cold beer at the end of a long day.

Emulating the movements of an inchworm, he brought his feet under him and made sure they were flat on the floor before putting any weight on them. Leaning his body forward, ensuring blood rushed to his head, he pushed off with his hands and shifted all his weight onto his legs. The pain galloped through him with iron clad hooves, knees spiking and threatening to give way, lashes of a whip somehow sinking beneath his flesh and stroking the bones of his spine. A wave of dizziness washed over him and he wobbled but managed to stay uptight. His toes were clenched and white as he attempted to grip the floorboards. Again he steadied his breathing, readjusting to the pain as it echoed off the inside of his skin and again he took small, tentative steps, moving slowly closer to the chair.

He reached out, placing one hand on the slim wooden armrest and with the other attempted to part the curtains. With a swift jerk he tore one side of the curtains from the rail above until it was held on by a single hook in the far corner. When he let go most of the curtain pooled on the floor, its stale yellow taint darkening with the layers so as to resemble dried mustard around the rim of a long expired jar. He cursed but his anger was quickly burnt off by the pain that flared around his hips and down his legs. When he managed to get his arse into the seat he cursed again, softly this time, unwilling to the alert the rest of his body to the annoyance he felt. The chair was in front of the window where the other side of the curtain was still in place. With his back supported by the thin padding behind him he was unable to see out. He reached up as high as he dared and clasped the edge of the curtain, pulling it gently toward the side of the window. It was stubborn and needed coaxing, small tugs exposing sliver after sliver of the world outside until his view was mostly unobstructed. It wasn’t all the way across so he was unable to see very far to his left without leaning forward and craning his neck but he was grateful enough for how much he could see. Despite his disposition he found the time he spent looking out his window was important to him. He dismissed the idea breakfast and even put off going to the bathroom which would no doubt increase in urgency and necessity, it was the view he wanted most, it was the view that mattered most should all else be taken from him.

The sun was only just beginning to brush the sky with lighter hues when he was finally settled and in a place where the pain was the feel of a ball-peen hammer rather than a crosscut saw. The street lights switched off a block at a time and the headlights of the few cars that drifted past no longer cut as deeply into the shadows. His eyes devoured each flicker of movement, a dog appeared, unleashed, sniffed briefly at several bulbous bags of garbage before being disturbed at his potential breakfast by a runner. The runner’s long strides and chosen course quickly took him out of the picture but not before envy laced the thoughts of his spectator. The heaviness of each footfall, the swing of each leg and arm as the muscles responded to the will of their owner, the depth of each breath as the lungs inflated and blood was rapidly pumped to the outer reaches of a hungry body had the man, with his aches and his pains, with his deflated will and curbed goals, sink a little deeper into his chair and briefly turn away.

When he turned back the runner was gone as was the dog. The footpath he saw the clearest was on the far side of the road. For now that footpath was empty. Beneath him, behind a row of deciduous trees with their broad leaves coated in the colours of autumn, was another path only partially glimpsed. In no more than a month the path would be exposed, the gutter housing the fallen leaves. It was here he saw a flash of black. A businessman in a long coat, carrying a briefcase rigidly at his side. He would appear and disappear at intervals, always with head firmly fixed on where he was going. Despite the erectness of his posture there seemed no joy in his passage. His square shoulders carried hints of stress and displeasure, the receding hair line and splash of scalp closer to the back of his head carried hints of sternness and fading dreams. A bubble of sympathy welled up within the man, he threw it from the window like a water balloon and hoped it would clear the trees and land directly on the businessman’s bald spot. He’d never worn a suit to work, nor felt important enough to carry a briefcase, he’d worn jeans and a flannel shirt every day for over forty years, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t or didn’t feel anything for those that huddled behind their desks and sat facing each other in board rooms. As far as he could see they were more trapped than he was.

By the time the businessman had completely disappeared the sun was making inroads. It was a long way from clearing the roof tops but narrow rays had begun sliding along the walls and from his vantage the man could see fractals of light bouncing off the windows of taller buildings in the business district. To him that part of the city was as foreign as Indian curry or Korean rice wine. He was a simple man, he always had been. His mother cooked simple meals, typically whatever meat was cheapest, spuds and beans from her own garden and a thick slice of white bread smothered in butter. Butter used to be cheaper and easier to come by but that didn’t last. Before he turned ten butter had been replaced with margarine. He could spread it with a single swipe of the knife but the oiliness took a little getting used to. These days however he could barely remember what a slice of bread tasted like without it.

He’d been buying loaves of unsliced white bread from the same baker for the past sixteen years. The bakery was only a block away and was run by a husband and wife who never failed to greet him with a smile and a question or two about his day. Back when he’d been working there were stories to tell but these days, when he was up to the walk, his answers were short, polite and seldom followed by questions of his own. His stomach growled up at him as he thought about the softness of a fresh loaf still warm from the oven.

He wasn’t a particularly rambunctious child but there were times when his love of white bread had resulted in a wooden spoon across the backs of his legs. He would be sent to the neighbourhood market. A small place that stocked anything and everything, from the Sunday papers to nuts and bolts. He’d be sent down after the morning cartoons to buy a rounded loaf of white bread and a bottle of milk. The bread was slid into a brown paper bag and flipped over so the corners of the bag would curl, sealing the bread inside. With the milk held carefully on one hand he tucked the bread under his arm and set off home. The warmth of the bread pressed against his side would be calling to him however and he was powerless to resist. Since he was going to eat it anyway he didn’t see any reason not to start then and there. He would find a short brick wall to sit on and proceed to dig his hand into the end of the loaf, ripping off the crust and pulling out the fleshy whiteness from within. By the time he arrived home half of the inside of the loaf was gone and a spanking would quickly follow.

These memories would bring a smile to his face but failed to stop the whirligig that was going off inside his stomach and unfortunately that wasn’t the most pressing of problems. The bathroom was calling with even more urgency. He knew he’d have to make the journey sooner or later, either that or piss himself where he sat. He liked the chair too much however to do that. Pushing himself to his feet was less painful and faster than climbing out of bed and with slow steps he reached the doorway to the bathroom sooner than he expected. It still didn’t stop his breath from quickening nor sweat from forming. The bridge of his nose and the corner of his eyes crinkled with each pointed stab and violent thrust, his body parried by tensing muscles and holding perfectly still until the pain eased. Seated as he was, with the door open and the only light coming in through the window he felt venerable, unprotected, ashamed. He’d often thought about death and when it might come for him and as he was right now was the time he feared the most, sitting on the toilet with his pants down. There was no hurrying his bowels however, things tended to happen in their own time. His right leg was almost completely numb by the time he gingerly reached behind to flush.

Standing at the basin with the water running and the mirror directly in front of him he could see the patchy grey stubble that stained his chin and cheeks. He thought of shaving but realized there was no one to shave for so instead splashed water on his face to wash away the sweat and sleep from his eyes. Without looking at the mirror again he turned off the tap, dried himself on the scratchy cream coloured towel that was a few weeks past its best and slowly made for door.

He took two steps into the living room, the chair beside the window with half the curtain draped on the floor was ten more steps directly ahead of him. To his right and around the corner was the kitchen with its shoulder high fridge containing little more than a few questionable eggs and half a bag of sweet potatoes that had started to grow. The cupboards were almost as bleak. He knew if he opened them all he would find were the remains of a bag of macaroni and a tin of baked beans, a few tea bags and if he was a lucky a few stale water crackers hidden away in the bottom of a box. Not the makings of fine dining. There was something edible there but each item came with its own risks. He thought about making a cup of tea but that would require milk. He could drink it black but the habit had become so fixed within him that milk was an integral component of a good cup of tea. He could barely conceive of drinking tea without it. He remembered his grandmother drinking her tea black. Pouring a little into her saucer and bringing the saucer to her lips. He had always thought it was strange until he realised it was her way of cooling it down. He wasn’t his grandmother and needed milk.

He gave up on finding anything in the kitchen and took small, halting steps toward the chair. The sun was just beginning to stream in through the window making elongated shadows on the floor and across the walls. He followed the shadow of the chair back toward its solid source and once again eased himself down. The strain of getting up, of moving and of the return journey had left his heart racing and his breath coming in uneasy, short, sharp bursts. He leaned back, resting his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes.

He was young and he was running. There was a field of short grass beneath his feet and the sounds of shouting coming from the side line. Nearby were the sounds of heavy breathing and of many feet pounding against the pitch. The metal sprigs on his boots dug into the earth and each stride bounded up off the ground with strength. He could see the ball being passed from one player to the next until the boy directly in front of him was clutching it in two hands. He surged forward, his arms outstretched. The boy didn’t try to side step him, he was big, strong and confident. His arms locked around the boys waist and both landed hard. It was a text book tackle, just like his coach had drilled into him. The ball popped out and bounced forward, the whistle blew and when he stood up several team mates slapped him on the back or gave him a nod of acknowledgment.

The old man woke reluctantly. It wasn’t often his dreams were so vivid and even less often they were so sweet. He shifted his weight, hoping the strength he just had felt was still there. The reply was instant and painful. He let out a shuddering sigh and closed his eyes, knowing he would not be allowed back into the vision but attempted anyway to replay it. The sounds, the smells, the life he felt in every limb, all had faded until they were nothing more than watermarks on old paper.

He finally gave up trying to sleep and opened his eyes once more to the world beyond. The sun was reaching the tops of the buildings opposite and would soon be throwing hefty bolts of light into his small apartment. It was his favourite time of day, when he could feel the weight of the sun pressing directly against his flesh. When he was a student, the most dangerous time of day was when the sun was at its highest, streaming in through large windows and bathing his bed in warmth. It was so easy to curl up and go to sleep and forget about his afternoon classes. These says it was so much easier to sleep the whole day through and miss much of what was going on. Days on end had disappeared with little to show for it save a dent in the pillow and dried drool in the corner of his mouth.

He wallowed in the feeling of heat penetrating his thin skin, exposing his legs in an attempt to drain a little of the pain from the joints. His flesh was a grid work of fine purple veins, looking more like expensive marble rather than the fragile, practically discard-able commodities they had become. If it wasn’t for the slight support they gave him, keeping him from having to resort to a wheel chair or give in to the lure of a walker, he would have chopped them of years ago. At least that was how he felt when the pain was particularly bad, reducing his world to mere meters.

He rolled his shoulders and tilted his head from side to side hoping to shake off the desire to fall asleep once again. He was told once that as you get older the less sleep you need, he had found the opposite to be true. Once he finished work and had little or nothing to do with his days and found every day was a battle to stay awake. Long ago, ten years perhaps, maybe longer, maybe less, he would hear a knock at the door and know a smiling face would be on the other side. Smiling mouth but not smiling eyes. Faces of family, his son or perhaps his daughter, his son’s wife and his only grandchild, his daughter always alone.

His daughter was never a frequent visitor and always came reluctantly. When she was young he would hold her up to the heavens and point out the stars but when as she grew up she grew more and more distant. He could no longer hold onto the bond they had shared. He didn’t understand half the things she told him nor the things she liked to do. He wanted her to be that sweet, bubbly girl that had been pleased to see him when came to collect her. He missed her the most. Her wild main of auburn hair she had inherited from her grandmother, her laugher when he showed her the caterpillars that were destroying his cabbages, the little whimper she would make whenever she fell down and the way she would bite her top lip to stop herself from crying. Whenever he remembered her it was always the little girl he saw, he had no idea what she looked like now.

Above the phone mounted to the wall beside the kitchen was a cork tile. It had been there since he moved in and he had seen no reason to take it down. It was chipped around the edges and thumb tack after thumb tack had taken its toll, there were holes giving way to the torn wallpaper underneath. He’d pressed a few of those thumb tacks in himself. One held an article he’d clipped from the paper about a man in his twenties who’d won the lottery. He became a millionaire overnight and was able to pay off all his debts as well as those of his family. He took his family on a world trip and still had enough to buy his mother a house in the country with trees growing in the backyard and hire a nurse to take care of her. Just as the young man was about to focus on himself, pay for himself to go to university the paper speculated, he’d been struck by a car and killed instantly. The other piece of paper pinned to the corkboard was small and roughly square. It contained his daughter’s last known phone number written in heavy black ink. He’d never called it.

He continued paying the phone bill despite not being able to remember the last time he used it. He continued paying the licencing fee for the television despite not having a TV. He would pick up the phone from time to time to check if there was a dial tone but he never found himself wondering what he could be watching. He heard the sound of a television through the floor but that did nothing to invigorate his urge. He’d seen computers and heard about this thing called the internet but figured he could learn everything he needed to know from the papers. A good conversation had once told him everything happening around him but those connections had fallen away and his world had shrunk even further. It wasn’t something he had tried to do. It was just a part of life he reasoned.

He had liked his son’s wife. She wasn’t strong like his own wife or knew half as much about raising children but she was good natured and loved his son. That was easy to see. When they moved away they’d promised they would stay in touch, call as soon as they were settled, with numbers and an address and perhaps even have him come out and stay with them for a few days to see the new place. He’d given up waiting. Another side effect of growing old, the young were always living faster lives and slowing down to spend time with an old fart like him seemed like a lot of hard work. He missed them too, his son and his son’s little girl, who wouldn’t be that little any more. She’d be a teenager now, tapping away on one of those smart phones and wearing more make-up than she needed. He wondered if she’d grown up to look more like her grandmother, his wife, the woman he was lucky enough to spend a few short years with. He didn’t want to think about her. He returned his gaze to the view out the window.

It must have been close to lunchtime, the roads had become heavier with cars and the footpaths thick with strollers. Only a few low walls offered places to sit and those were occupied with an assortment of bodies, some eating, some reading, many sitting quietly and watching as people passed by. One man, in blue jeans and a hoodie, ignored the ankle high rope surrounding a small patch of grass beside the footpath and unceremoniously sat down. He placed a takeaway cup of coffee on the ground beside him then pulled a plastic container from his backpack along with a disposable fork. It looked like a salad. Leaning back on one elbow he dug the fork in without restraint and filled his mouth.

The old man watching him imagined the sensation of biting into crisp lettuce and perfectly ripened tomatoes dressed with a little pepper and lemon juice. He imagined the feeling of grass beneath his fingers and the soft earth making wet patches on the arse of his jeans. He imagined a cloud passing over the sun and for a moment feeling a chill only to be bathed in warmth when the sun suddenly returned. He imagined looking at his watch and feeling the press of minutes as his lunch hour was coming to a close and he would soon have to return to work. He imagined having that sense of urgency again. He tried to look away but his attention was immediately drawn back when the man seating on the grass was approached by a woman.

The woman had blonde dreadlocks that reached halfway down her back. She shook them with pride as she stood over the young man. He was forced to bring a hand to his eyes as he looked up to her. They talked and exchanged smiles. There was laughter and soon the young man was producing a phone from his back pocket. She did likewise. They gave each other a small wave and she walked away. Moments later the young man was gathering up his things, stuffing the plastic container into his bag and racing off in the direction she had gone. The coffee was still sitting there long after he’d disappeared. The old man figured a pretty girl was reason enough to become forgetful.

He looked toward the kitchen again and thought briefly about trying to make something edible with the few things available but realized nothing short of fresh baked bread, perhaps a big plate of pasta and a cold beer would satisfy him. He let his stomach grumble unanswered. He reached for a book from the small pile close to hand. Books were a comfort. They took him someplace else when his body could not. They occupied his mind, distracting him from the here and now. He drifted much like a rudderless boat on a becalmed ocean. He would pick up a book and let the words carry him where they will until distraction had him either looking out the window once more or his thoughts carried him away. His moods changed and thus his needs changed, sometimes it was ponderous words from great thinkers, at other times it was whimsical musings from travellers, who, like him, were searching for something more.

He managed to get through a few pages before the sounds from the street below had him wondering. Car doors were being slammed shut and voices were being washed away by the rustle of leaves in an unmindful breeze. He watched as bodies were dressed and undressed in broad-backed leaves, a family with baskets and bags, returning perhaps from a mornings shopping in one of those colourless malls that were oceans he would never learn to navigate.

The sun had begun is downward journey. Colour draining from the walls and furniture. The shadows in his apartment thickened and a chill crept into the space between his shoulder blades. Below the road was still brightly lit but there were few pedestrians and less traffic. There would be a few hours of the lazy afternoon to pass, the time of delivery vans and old folk, before the laughter of children coming home from school wandered up toward his window. He leant back into his chair, clutched the book toward his chest and tried to remember what it was to be a child, what it was to laugh at the smallest of things. The book slipped as his grip weakened, edging its way toward the floor. When a knock at the door had him suddenly awake, the book landed with a thump on the floor beside him, compounding the startled nature of the moment.

He waited and a few moments later the knock came again. It was patient, not insistent, it didn’t demand he leap to answer it which was just as well as his leaping days were behind him. His first thought was the paper boy, perhaps he’d forgotten to pay his bill. Those things were all automatic these days so unless his bank account was empty his subscription to the local excuse for news was covered. He pushed up off the armrests and brought himself to his feet. Each step, feet barely leaving the surface of the floor, more a shuffle than a walk, was sharp and riddled with pain. He made slow progress to the door.

As he crossed the living room the knocks didn’t come again but for a moment he thought he heard voices, whispers followed by a hushing sound then just before he reached for the handle, deliberate knocks sent small vibrations into the hinges. He hesitated. For a moment he tried to remember when it was he’d last used his voice. He brought one hand to the smoothness of the handle and un-synched the lock with his other hand. He pulled the door inward and took two half steps back.

A tall man in a fine suit stood directly in front of him. His hair had begun to thin on top but there was still a youthfulness in his eyes and especially the broad grin he wore. Beside him was a woman, she was smiling too. Hers was smaller yet her eyes were broader and filled with kindness. Somewhere behind them more bodies were shuffling impatiently.

“Hi Dad.” The suited man said, “May we come in?”

He stepped forward and instead of walking past him, dropped the bags he was carrying and wrapped his arms around his father. His hug was deep and warm and he smelt of the same musky aftershave the old man had worn in his youth.

For a moment the old man lost himself. The days fell away and from the kitchen he heard his wife preparing a late lunch as his children played noisily in the living room. As they embraced, his son’s wife squeezed past, dumping several bags on the kitchen counter, two girls had followed. She’d then gone over to the window and pulled back the rest of the curtain allowing more light into the apartment’s small interior.