TWENTY-FIRST FLOOR
And aren’t we lucky: living the way we do, in buildings that are giants that house us in their organs.
Twenty-First Floor
A man exiting the building notices him standing in the lobby, eyeing the chart that matches the apartment numbers with their correlating floors. “Do you live here?” The man asks him.
He suddenly feels like a homeless an un-housed person who’s snuck in from the cold. “I’m here to see a friend.”
“Oh, okay.”
Twenty first floor and all the way up. He wonders when his ears will pop. Perhaps it’s not just the darkness of night but the vastness that makes him feel inconsequential.
Outside the ring, buildings take their proper space.
It’s the buildings that live here during the day and dream heavily, cloaked in concrete, at night. The few people who exited the metro with him scattered into shadows like tiny woodland creatures, disappearing in corners as the buildings loomed above, looking down on them as prey.
The friend shows him around the apartment, shows him the view.
In the surrounding area new buildings slowly find their footing and claim their spot, each in different stages of becoming. “This building has only been here a year,” his friend says. He really is happy for him. Finding a place is so hard in the city.
But this is something else. A new area. A new city. There is no grocery store here, no post office, no cafe. (That’s one metro stop over.)
Inside everything is new: the appliances, the plants, the large table in the dining area that is in the corner with two walls of windows. His friend invites him to look out at the shimmering city skyline. “On a clear day you can see Rotterdam.” It’s been ages since he’s seen a city in the distance, the twinkling of dreams attempting to be realized, the constant hum of successes and failures.
Eventually they settle into the chairs and talk about things. It has been months since they last saw each other (and he knows now that it may be months before they’ll see each other again). It’s nothing new, all the same: ‘which party did you go to?’ and ‘how’s the job?’ and ‘what’s the next trip you’re planning?’
The year has just begun and already a timeline has been set. A sprinkle of trips here and there, the need to get out of this dreary place in the winter. Probably Spain. He tells him about a six-week road trip through Europe he took with his best friend last year: Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Greece. He watches him speak about his road trip, staring at his beautiful face, wondering what it must be like to grow up like this, in Europe, with friends and so many possible adventures at your fingertips.
And aren’t we lucky, he thinks, living the way we do, in buildings that are giants that house us in their organs. The glimmering lights of the city, the visual equivalent of chirping crickets. He feels so very, very small here.
He checks his phone because it will take him almost an hour to get back to his apartment and it’s a work day tomorrow. He has to leave.
“Let me know when you go out. I still haven’t been to Shelter.”
He wonders why he mentions that club specifically. It’s not a club he frequents. But then he remembers how he had invited him to go there once because he had guest-list, but then his friend decided not to go. Feeling rejected he went out anyway.
“Sure, let’s go.” But in his heart he doesn’t really believe it.
A bro-ey handshake with a quick hug, before he plunges down the elevator and into the cold night air.
No one knows how to hug anymore.