The World Outside a Window

It’s 3:33. I think I should make a wish. And then I laugh at myself because I am a grown ass woman and I should be thinking serious thoughts. There’s a pandemic for chrissakes. For the record grown ass people are just as prone to superstitious reflexes as the gaggle of tweens walking past the window. How many does it take to make a gaggle? These are the thoughts I pause to consider. My mind is extra distracted today, flitting from thought to musing to query  with relentless consistency. I indulge the meanderings. The gaggle of five have finished home schooling and are off to no place in particular, the city is in another lockdown. The tallest one has the longest hair and the curtain of it flashes side to side, extra shiny in the sunlight. They are all bare-legged with voluminous hoodies or sweatshirts. I wonder what they would have made of me as I walked the same sidewalk earlier, a cloth coat bundled over a long sleeve sweater and jeans. A silk scarf in my pocket in case my neck got cold. Would they look at me bemusedly the way I had looked at the older woman who went by earlier; mask up, hat brim down, hands in gloves with a mincing stride as she made her laps around the block? Her arms pumped with such purpose I assumed a destination until she reappeared a short time after. I imagined the pride she took in the steps being tallied by her Fitbit, a present from her grandson last Christmas. I imagined the Fitbit of course; she was wearing a windbreaker. I imagined a story for almost everyone who passed by. A constant stream of stories playing within the frame of the window. 

It’s the simplest form of storytelling I know. Anything can be framed as a story. In improv a story can be created out of a single action or object. 

The woman pushing the stroller with one hand is doing all the talking. She’s forgotten her AirPods but is over the initial irritation now she’s at the climax of the grievance she’s recounting. I wonder how much the other arm might gesticulate if it didn’t have to push the pram. So much movement has been restricted since they got the stroller. If the friend could get a word in they might suggest the pandemic has leveled the playing field of restrictions. She for one doesn’t get out as much since every outing involves a 14 floor elevator ride. Twenty eight potential confrontations. The math of masks is tiresome. Instead she spends hours making up stories about the lives behind the windows across the street.