THE SHELL

The man across my flat is at the window and stares. Whenever I look he has the same vacant look lost in the urban backyard. He wears the same white athletic shirt leaving his old shoulders uncovered to get some air. He sets his eyes on something and leaves it there for hours. His own images and thoughts are projected on the same static spot which could be the railings, a dove, the humidity on the wall, the flower pot. Whenever I pull my curtain I will find him there at the opposite window with the same awkward look. I’m on my bed. It’s still dawn, too early. Third night in a row that I can’t sleep. I roll on the bed like an insect being tortured by kids playing in the fields. Heat, stillness, problems, bills that don’t stay by the door but boldly come in, they all choke me. I leave the window open for the first light of the day to get in the room, in my nest. In a safety shell that I have fictitiously created in order to deal with reality. An old shell. An old house like the old man's body across my flat.  And as he looks out of the window the house stares at me in the same way. It is alive. The walls with the worn out wallpaper are watching me through its missing pieces, the sound of the fridge is like a rhythmic respiration facing problems, the toilet flush that’s broken and is leaking, the suffocating heat coming out of each tile stating that there’s another body with me with the same needs and damages. It cannot stand the heat that melts everything. My nest is a living organism in a weak pulse finding it hard to cope with the hot summer in Athens. Another summer in the city. I am sealed in my shell and I almost feel the safety of the womb. I know that it is doing everything to protect me. A biological bond with everything inside here. A shell like a shelter that sometimes proudly stands out and supports me and other times it chokes and pushes me to a point I can’t bear. A maternal Gordian knot. The place you always run to in order to hide yourself from the truth. The man across my flat is still looking at the same spot. The sun is rising.