text: As I made my way through the busy highways and street lights, I finally arrived at a red bricked building that had matching patios stretching out across the complex. This place certainly looked bigger online. I walked through the front door and was greeted by Phyllis, a nice old lady who owned the building. Her hair was curled and white and she wore a face that has seen many like me come and go before. “Here are the keys,” she said as she handed me two gold keys that dangled on an old bottle opener. We walked up the stairs three stories and she brought me to room 304. She opened the door for me as she began to explain, “rent is due on the first of the month and try to keep it down. You got neighbors to your left, right, above, and below you. If it gets too hot, open all the windows. If it gets too cold, put a jacket on.” The door opened into the hallway of my apartment which was dark until I hit the light switch. To my left, a restroom door that had a sink that dripped like a metronome in a music class. To the right, my bedroom, where a twin sized bed sat in the middle of the room with a light green cover that I knew I desperately needed to replace. At the end of the hallway, a large space that was illuminated by a single large window. A full kitchen that still had a stove that still had coils and a refrigerator with outdated coupons and a chinese menu taped on its face. The window had a wooden table that was complimented with a wooden chair right in front of it. I put my things down and sat down at the table. I stared off into the view. The sound of horns and people walking by filled my ears. In the distance, the sun was setting and I can see the cloud beginning to change its color to a hazy purple. One by one, the windows on every home from each busy street began to turn on. “Did I really leave it all for this?” I thought to myself as I let out a final sigh. As I stepped away from the window, I couldn’t help, but notice a small house right next to our red bricked complex. It was easy to miss because all the other buildings towered right over it. It is a light grey duplex with white frames that wrapped around the doors and windows. I have a clear view at the many bouncy balls that got stuck on the roof over the years, and a gutter that has not been well maintained. The backyard had a rusted swing set and weeds that over grew the jungle gym. The front of the house had an old bike that was leaning on a mailbox that stood over a chain linked fence. The side of the house that was facing my complex had a large window which lit up as I began to look. From my high angle, I could only see a desk with a laptop and notebook resting on its surface. I can see the reflection of a flat screen TV and a lamp that radiated a luminescent white light, similar to the shine of a full moon. I can hear Randy Newman’s “You got a friend in me” playing from his TV screen. There were lines all over the carpet, which made me feel like there must be a train set or some sort of children’s toy that was used regularly in the home. Then I saw a young boy, who must have been about 15 years old. He wore circular glasses and had the hair style similar to Harry Potter. It was not well maintained, but how can you blame him, he’s a teenager. His body was skinny and frail and he focused on his laptop as if nothing in the world mattered. On his desk, he had two stick figures. It was Woody and Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story. A movie that I watched when I was not much younger than that boy. At that moment, I see a dark blue BMW pull into the driveway. A middle-aged couple get out of the car. A short woman in pink scrubs walks out of the passenger side carrying a brown paper bag full of groceries. She walked with a fast pace and approached the front door quickly. The man walked out of the driver seat with a briefcase in one hand and a bag full of take-out in the other. He walked slowly and took his time as he walked towards the front door. He had his tie loosened and his blazer unbuttoned. They seemed to move so gracefully that I felt this was just another daily occurrence for them. The boy looks up from his laptop, closes it, and shuts off the light. I never thought I’d feel so close to home by being so far away. I assume that the couple are the boy’s parents and it reminded me of what life was like for me at a time. On birthdays or holidays, my parents used to bring home take-out as well. We didn’t have a large duplex or even a BMW, but my parents tried their best when I was just a boy. But that was when I was just a boy. I unpacked my things and got ready for my next day, the first day working at the new office. I could have stayed back home, but with an opportunity to be a part of the first new staff at this new office, I had to take it. Plus I needed to get away from it all. The office was filled with new equipment and every desk was packed uniformly into its own cubicle. Every single employee was from another branch and the only thing we had in common with each other was the fact that we all left our homes to start fresh here. We all left everything we knew to be a part of the grand opening of an office that handled all the finances for a company that supplied door handles, door knobs, door locks, and door stoppers to offices and businesses. I know my line of work isn’t the most exciting, but it pays the bills. I easily adjusted to my new life as my routine remained the same. I would wake up, drive to work, park in the same spot, walk through the same door, sit at the same desk, talk to the same people, eat at the same restaurant for lunch, look at the same websites, leave work at the same time, and figure out what was for dinner on the way home, driving the same route. I would eat my dinner on the same wooden table and look out the same window. The only thing that was different as the weeks passed was what my neighbors were up to. Without sounding like some total creep or stalker, my favorite part of the day became eating dinner while watching what this family was up to. It was the closest thing I ever had to home. They had their own routine too. The couple would come home at the same time, 6:30PM every single day. Most of the time, they had take-out, and most of the time, they moved in their routine ways. Now unless it happens during my working hours, I have never actually seen the boy leave the house. I have only seen flashes of him looking at his laptop or rewatching the Toy Story series on his flat screen TV. Many times, I envied him. To have take-out almost every night, to have a room all to himself, to have both parents catering to him and loving him, it really seemed like every kid’s dream. On Sundays, both of the parents were off and sometimes, I could smell the sweet smoky smell coming from the flames of their backyard bbq. It reminded me of times when my dad taught me how to use the smoker. He taught me that patience was the key to getting that tender and juicy element. We used to cook together all the time. That was until he got sick and well, everything changed since then. As time went on, I furnished my home, bought some new clothes, and finally learned how to prepare some meals. Of course I was motivated by the ingredients that my neighbors brought in in their brown paper bags, but for the most part, I was able to craft some ideas of my own. I finally managed to save up to buy a TV, nothing close to the size of my neighbors flat screen, but it was big enough for me to enjoy some light relaxing television. But I quickly learned that I wasted my money, because my nights typically ended with me looking out the window to see what my neighbors were up to. One Tuesday morning, I felt a tickle in my throat and my body was aching. Randy from accounting has expressed to me that he was feeling under the weather last week and I knew I knew I should have taken an Emergen-C. I called out sick that day and went into bed. The pounding from the apartment above me and the children running around below me made me realize that this place is impossible to rest during the day time. Then it hit me, this was the first time I was home during this time, and I walked towards the window. The driveway was empty as I expected it to be. The boy was in his room, but this time, his laptop was closed. The boy had his arms on the table and his head pressed against his forearms. I thought he was sleeping, but after looking a bit closer, he was crying. He had Buzz in one hand, and Woody in the other. He weeped and weeped. I wondered what he was crying about. I thought to myself how he has two loving parents, gets to eat take-out every day, has a home to himself, and is still crying? How can that be? It made me wonder how in the world could someone that has so much, spend his Tuesday afternoon crying and weeping. Tuesday afternoon? Shouldn’t this kid be in school? I fought so hard to not just go down there or scream out my window to the kid. I just wanted to scream out, “What do you have to cry about !? You have it made!” But then I quickly realized how much of a creep I would be if I were to approach a 15 year old kid and tell them that I have been watching them for weeks through their window. But it killed me as I wondered what he was crying about. I laid awake for the next few days, wondering what was wrong. I couldn’t come to any conclusions. I thought about all the things a 15 year old boy had to worry about. When I was 15, I was crying over my father’s illness, my mother’s stress, and the time I spent in isolation. Could he be crying over a girlfriend? A sad movie he saw? What was it? About a year passes by and I stop looking out my window every single night. Whenever I do look, it tends to be the same old things: the boy looking at this laptop, playing with his figurines, and a busy parent couple rushing in and out of the house. But one afternoon, I got home early from work and decided to take a look outside. To my surprise, I saw the BMW in the driveway. How strange. In my whole entire year of observing, I’ve never seen the BMW in the driveway during the day time. Did the couple skip work today? Did they take the day off? The boy was not in the window as well. It almost seemed like no one was home. But at night, the couple came outside to the patio. I can only see their legs and I can hear the boy sitting across from them. They were enjoying dinner outside tonight. It was a beautiful sight to see. After seeing the boy cry when he’s home alone, it felt nice knowing he was loved when he had company. Later that night, I noticed a different pattern in how the boy moved. Instead his normal gait, he hovered over the room. For the first time, I saw his father go into the room with him. He stood behind him as the boy opened up his laptop. And then it hit me. The marks in the carpet, they way the boy moved, he was never walking around the home, he was in a wheelchair. It suddenly all made sense as to why he couldn’t move around freely. A few months have passed and I forgot about the boy. By now he should be a bit older and hopefully even got a haircut. I decided to take a look outside the window one night, but his room light was off. “Must’ve called it a night early,” I thought. And then it happened again. And again. And again. I felt embarrassed to say that I was worried about this kid I have never met. Someone I have only known through the four corners of my window peering into his. One morning I noticed a for sale sign up in front of the house. This was my first chance to actually get to take a look inside of the home. I put on my light jacket and headed downstairs. I saw Phyllius on the way down and said hello. “Those poor folk next door,” she mumbled. “They’ve been living there for three generations,” she explained as her voice began to crack. “Why are they selling their home?” I asked. “Well, son, they just got no one to pass it down to now,” she replied. My heart sank as I was finally able to make sense of everything. I ran back up my room and began to sob uncontrollably. Then I began to laugh. Not the type of laugh from hearing a joke, but the type of hysterical laughing that happens when you just don't know what else to feel. Then I began to feel like a jerk. How could I, a healthy adult, at one point in my life envy a kid who was sick. How could I have ridiculed his reasons for crying when he probably felt more alone than anyone else in the neighborhood. I saw first hand how much time he was alone, and the entire time, I could have been there for him. I wept for days over a kid I never even met. I stopped looking out the window for a while. I just couldn’t handle the view of that table that sat at his window. Where I would usually see a young kid sitting, I now saw an empty chair. The BMW was in the driveway all the time now. I think the couple decided to take some time off. They have been showing the house to many different people throughout the weeks, so I decided to finally walk down to take a look. I rang on the doorbell and was greeted by the man who was now in sweatpants and a t-shirt, definitely a different set of clothes compared to what I was used to seeing. Behind him was an empty wheelchair with two figurines on the seat. I viewed the house, but it was really too much for me to handle. That night, I looked outside the window again. It really bothered me how I could feel so alone in a city surrounded by others. But it was also strange to me how I have never felt so close to home, through the view of my window. In a new town and in a new place, it is this family I have been observing that made me feel like I was a part of a family again. I’ve felt alone before, just like that kid sitting at his desk, but now I really felt alone all over again. In a way, I feel like he was my only friend out in this new city. The most tragic part of it all, is that he will never get to know. He had someone that depended on him, someone that valued him, and someone that was there all along.