The windows and Me

The Windows and Me

I live in a flat with very large windows. It’s a top floor flat on the seventh and eighth floor of an old school conversion in South London. I can see roof tops and a little bit of the inside of flats covering a large part of Vauxhall in South London. I see all sorts of lives going on in east and west, a bit of north and a bit of south. I have a perfect view of the Shard in London Bridge not too far away, I can see the lights inside Sushi Samba in the City, and the headquarters of global banks in Canary Wharf. Nearby I can see what appears to be the residence of people who have done well in life and therefore have a comfortable big flat, but also those that appear to not have done so well.

When I look out at the people on the streets or out on their roof tops I struggle to keep my eyes away. There is something they all have in common which I don’t have. There is a quality in what they do and how they live that for me suggests a better life, with more sex, parties, friends, happiness.

I tend to look out my windows for a long time. It doesn’t matter what they are doing: working, exercising, socialising, thinking, watching me watch them. I want to watch and try to establish what is it that they have that I don’t. But there is also something deeply disturbing: the sense that they are watching me, all of them, all the time, and the fact that there is very little or no evidence to indicate this is true. In fact, I hardly see any life inside the other buildings. When I see nothing going on which is most of the time, I have this feeling that they are hiding behind their curtains, or just looking at me from an angle where I can’t see them. I sense they are judging me, assessing my moves, counting and discussing between them how many times I have looked out my window in any particular day, getting ready to suddenly jump out from their hiding places and shout “what the fuck are you looking at?”. I sense they call me names, like pervert, crazy, idiot, lunatic, the man who doesn’t deserve to live in that nice top flat with huge arch windows.

Sometimes it feels like this paranoia energises me. It keeps me alive in this dark, sad and lonely life that I have. When I was in active drug addiction and the paranoia kicked in it made me terrified of windows, including my own. I wouldn’t dare to look out, first because I was sure someone was just outside looking through the blinds trying to find me or waiting to suddenly storm into the flat and attack me. They could have been the policy, the neighbours, burglars, bad people, anyone who wasn’t happy with me and wanted to punish me for whatever I had done. I would sit in the dark as silent as I could for hours, in the most hidden place I could find where I could at the same time stare at the blinds without interruption and waiting for a sign, a shadow, a movement, any sign that the moment I had been waiting for the last 5, 10, 15, 20 hours had finally come. I confused the sound of rain, cars doors closing, steps on the street, even the sunlight changing position, with that final moment. I don’t know how I didn’t go mad. Or maybe I have gone mad. Sometimes when my heart was about to explode, I thought the best option was to just face the threat, open every door and every window and confront every threat that appeared. I could scream at it, throw things at it, fight for my life.

Before I had problems with paranoia, I would happily stare through the windows completely off my face. It felt like the world out there was full of opportunities and all I had to do was to keep looking and wait for a big opportunity. That could have been someone from one of the windows waiving at me with signs for me to come over for sex, or a party, an orgy, some food, or just cuddle up and watch a film, anything making life worth living, even if it was someone doing exactly what I was doing so I didn’t have thee sense that I am always alone. But every time someone actually appeared, or I spotted some action going on, I was petrified of being seen and would hide and check regularly if they had gone so I could come back to my spot.

But one day the paranoia started. I’d start telling myself that I had been there for so many hours that every single person living in the area had noticed. So instead of waiting for exciting opportunities, I started looking for people hiding, staring at me from a secret location. They were inside cars in parking spaces, behind curtains, behind trees and plants, they were watching me whilst I froze and became scared of even breathing, because my breathing would be felt no matter the distance. I just couldn’t see them clearly but I was sure they were there. Eventually they were there from the beginning. I no longer had to wait many hours. I could no longer look for the exciting events because people were already hiding the moment I looked out the window first thing in the morning. They’ve decided to stay there, all the time, ready for me any time.

The moment I wake up in the morning, open the blinds and pretend to have a morning stretch and yawn, my eyes are drawn straight to the windows and any shapes I can see through them. They are there I am sure. They’ve either been there the whole time or have some kind of alarm that goes off as soon as I look out the window, which is when they stop everything they are doing to assume their positions and start watching me watch them, whilst they judge, criticise, wonder what someone like me is doing in such a nice flat. I am pretty sure they are waiting for the opportunity to suddenly jump out and say “got you!”. They are the same people that stand just outside the window and stare through the blinds ready to attack me by storming through the windows and my front door to tell me they are there because of everything I’ve done wrong. They are a ticking bomb about to explode all the truths and fears I have ignored my whole life.

The first memory I have of my existence is pure darkness. Everything was dark and I was aware of it. I didn’t have a body or spoke, I was just aware. The next event I remember is being at home on a very sunny afternoon. My parents were out and I was looking out the window. I must have been 3, maybe 2, or even 4. I saw tractors approaching, more than one. They were clearing paths to build roads. It took them quite a few days to complete the job. I watched every day and all day. I stood on top of the sofa looking out the window. When they finished for the day I’d grab my toys and pretend I was a tractor driver. It was my dream profession at the time and I got tired of asking my father to buy me an electric tractor (for kids).

As a grew up, I looked out the window for other things. I looked out for danger. The city was very dangerous, crime rates were high and there had been several attempts to break into our house, all unsuccessful thanks to my dad’s rifle. I looked out every night for many hours until mum demanded I went to bed. When everybody was asleep I tip toed to the window and looked out for hours, waiting for the next threat to appear.

But instead, I ended up learning a few things about life perhaps a little bit too early. The other side of the road was just a huge long wall mostly covered by bushes and trees, and I watched young couples doing things. I remember the first time this guy was leaning against a girl, his hips were thrusting forwards and backwards. I wasn’t sure what was going on, I must have been 6 or 7. But one thing I was certain at that age: I wanted to do the same.

A few other occasions I watched couples fooling around, but nothing was like the first time. I will never forget the way those hips moved, his dark blue jeans, how he stopped moving every time a car went past.

When I was around 10, one of the men that used to rape me started whistling from the back of my house. It was his way of calling me. I was alone at home and he knew it. I immediately turned all the lights off, locked all the doors and hid under the bed. I could hear his steps walking just outside the house, and see his shadow as he looked through the bedroom window and called my name, almost whispering. He knew I was there somewhere, but deep down I was wishing he was just trying his luck. I am not sure how this particular circumstance ended. I think this time I managed to escape.

Even though I may have escaped that particular day, I will never forget the sound of his whispering shout calling my name, and seeing his shadow through the window, and how I held my breath as he went past. Today I see this shadow every time I am alone and the windows are closed. It still feels like he is about to call my name again.

Just over two decades later I was at my previous home in Tooting Common. It was 3am, I had only just arrived from a night out. Suddenly I hear three very loud shooting noises coming from the spare bedroom. The third one shattered the windows and was followed by something moving through the shattered glass. I quietly called the police who came in less than 5 minutes. It turned out that a big rock was used to break the window. Whoever did it just stuck their hands inside to steal my laptop from the desk by the window.

Since then my relationship with windows became one where I waited for the shadow to appear through the glass and whisper my name, and then three bangs, followed by the noise of shattered glass and the end of everything.

When I was on drugs that fear multiplied by about one hundred. To the point that I decided to either end my life or call for help. I called for help every tim, I couldn’t take it, I was as desperate as I was under the bed when I was 10. Help came and I was reassured there wasn’t anyone outside. But I was never convinced. Sometimes I have to get up in the middle of the night to do some checks, just to make sure.

Today I live in a top floor flat with an amazing view. But every time I look out towards the other flats they are there, hiding behind the curtains, the lumps, the furniture, they are always there waiting for me, the man I was hiding from when I was under the bed, the bugler who broke into my house and anyone who bullied me in the past, ready to jump out and say “got you”.

Sometimes when I look out I do a little meditation and I visualise everything within my eyesight like a film set. Behind those walls and the other flats there is nothing, it’s all emptiness. Or a better way of explaining it: because I can’t see what is inside or whether someone is actually hiding, the insides and those people hiding don’t actually exist. What exists is only what is in my consciousness, which is a set of buildings and their windows, and that is it. I swear I hardly see any movement inside, even though I know they are hiding. They don’t exist. Everything is a set up. They are watching from else where, to see how I react when I look out the windows, when I think there is someone there, hiding. They are monitoring how much time I spend looking, the time of the day. They are monitoring all my moves, so that suddenly they will jump out from the location they use to monitor me and say “got you”. Why would they do that? Who would spend hours and hours monitoring me. I am sure they have better things to do, just like me. Although it doesn’t stopping me from looking out the windows for hours and hours, in this never ending drama between the windows and me.