THE OPPOSITE BALCONY - ΤΟ ΑΠΕΝΑΝΤΙ ΜΠΑΛΚΟΝΙ

THE OPPOSITE BALCONY

I have lived a long time in this apartment. It is my personal space, my sacred space. I usually gather my friends for a beer, to watch a game, or to hang out. My apartment became a meeting place for my scumbag brothers in life, as we usually say among ourselves.

I wouldn't say that I'm particularly good-looking, the so-called "catch." Although thin, I am not fit enough. My height doesn't meet most women's needs either. All the women I had in my life did not exceed 1.65 in height. I have an ordinary face, dark hair, and dark eyes. I don't stand out from the rest of the Greeks.

I kill time with a video game or watching a movie when I'm alone in the apartment. Sometimes I watch her.

I am on the second floor, my balcony meets the opposite apartment, and the distance is relatively short. So, it's easy to see the neighbors when their shutters are open.

She lives on the first floor. Sometimes I sit on the straw stool outside on my little balcony, drink coffee, and pretend to read or think. But I always watch her when she walks through her living room, sits on her couch, or goes out on her balcony to stretch. Maybe she knows, maybe she likes me watching her. She lives alone. Although we have never met, I know the times she wakes up, the times she leaves the house, the times she rests.

I'm not the type of man to notice, and I'm not the type to flirt with her. Tall, model-proportioned, thick black hair with an intense, intelligent gaze. Sometimes her gaze observes me, then avoids me. I think her eye color must be brown or honey. From this distance, I can't tell. She must have a night job at some bar or club I haven't discovered yet. She closes the shutters every night at ten. Not a leaf moves in the house after that time, and there is movement again at five or six in the morning. Light comes through the cracks of closed shutters. Other times she opens them and goes out for a morning cigarette before going to bed.

I try to be discreet during those hours, not scare her, and hide behind the curtains if I am awake. During those hours, I have the pleasure of seeing her calm with a thoughtful look on her face, the movie of the night that has just passed, absorbed to notice the opposite balcony.

She wakes up around two or three in the afternoon. Several times I have the pleasure of seeing her wandering around her apartment in her tiny pajamas and messy hair. I won't hide that it excites me to see her.

I'm not a peep, nor a curious person. Wouldn't an ordinary man do the same if he were in my position? It became a forbidden fantasy, a necessary pleasure, a hidden crush, perhaps. Hidden or not, I watch her body movements, hair dancing around her shoulders, and the intelligent gaze lost in its interests. The thought that she knows and likes that I am watching excites me.

These activities changed a while ago. Something happened. She doesn't open the shutters that often anymore. Sometimes, I hear voices, voices on the phone. The times she leaves the house has changed, she may not come back, and other times the light may be left on all night with the shutters closed. The few times I have managed to reach her, she looked upset, sad, and troubled.

I didn't pay attention. I just freaked out on her. I wish she would continue the hidden game we adopted between us for so long. As if she is telling me that she needs a break from our illegal relationship, from the fantasy we created, from the unfulfilled desire. I didn't stop spying on her. The few times I met her outside on her balcony, I imagined her with a smile on her face, which was missing.

She had the shutters closed for a week. I couldn't know exactly what was going on. I couldn't even imagine it. One afternoon, on my way home, I saw an ambulance outside her apartment building in the neighborhood. A little later, I learned that a girl had committed suicide.

Her shutters did not reopen, and the movement inside her apartment stopped. The girl in the first disappeared. I never learned her name. Only her image remained from the opposite balcony.

Created by Diana Chemeris

https://dianachem.com/2022/08/19/the-opposite-balcony/