4 February 2026
I clean the windows on Wednesdays. Vinegar and newspaper, the way my mother taught me. The canal water leaves a film that builds up slow, like everything here.
The cloth makes circles. Clockwise, then counter. There's a rhythm to it that lets the mind wander, which is dangerous but sometimes necessary.
I used to look through a lot of windows. Hotel windows mostly, high floors when we could get them. The kind with blast tape in cross-hatches, or none at all because tape doesn't stop much. You learn to stand to the side. You learn not to silhouette yourself against the light.
From one window I watched a boy kick a football in a courtyard for twenty minutes. Just kick it against a wall and trap it, over and over. His sister sat on the steps reading something. Normal Tuesday morning, nine-fifteen. By noon the courtyard was different and I filed eight hundred words about infrastructure damage.
I don't remember what I wrote. I remember the boy's red shirt.
The narrowboat windows are small, double-glazed, safe. They look onto water and towpath and the occasional dog walker. Sometimes a heron, standing like it's considering something. No one shoots at herons here.
Wednesday mornings the light comes in low from the east, catches every smear I missed. So I do them again. Vinegar cuts through anything if you're patient.
My hands know this work now. They know how to hold a cloth, how much pressure, where the corners catch. They used to know other things. How to hold a camera steady on a rooftop. How to type with two fingers on a keyboard that's missing keys. How to shake hands with men who'll be dead in a week.
Hands forget, mostly. Or they learn new things and the old things fade. Muscle memory for peaceful tasks.
The windows are clean now. I can see through them perfectly, which is the point. Outside, the canal is flat and brown, reflecting nothing but sky. Inside, the kettle's on. It's Wednesday morning and I'm here and the glass is clean and that's enough.
That has to be enough.
Window • Opuss № I