those damn wheat biscuits

chapter 1: panes of glass

the first time i saw tom he didn't see me.

he shuffled through his flat, tying his tie whilst simultaneously chomping on what looked like wheat biscuits -- his tea kettle steaming up the kitchen windows.

i watched from across the alley, standing in my flat by my glass window with my own steaming hot cup of tea in my hand. i enjoyed people watching from my window since there wasn't much else to see with the view of my flat. besides, i was paying a good price because of this odd view. 

tom had moved in a few weeks ago but his boxes were still stacked and untouched. i assumed he was a busy employee and he'd get around to it once work gained momentum. 

i'd eventually come to realise work would never actually gain momentum, not in his line of work at least. 

tom lived below ada, a single mother of two. i liked ada and i assumed she tolerated me. i'd often bump into her in the mailroom and would bear listening to her stories about her late husband. 

i had made the mistake of having her over for dinner one night where she drank two flutes of champagne, which made her comfortable in my presence. that night she told me her life story -- everything that had ever happened to her and her husband. 

poor chap lost his life in a freak accident at the factory he worked at and the capitalist bastards who he worked for gave ada and her two children a smidgen of a pension. 

ada was surviving for her children and for some reason talking to me gave her strength. 

a sick, selfish part of me did not enjoy her weakness nor the glum she would often throw at me but i did not have the guts to cut her off and so i listened. 

tom lived above mr. hussnain, a divorced professor with a masturbation problem, but who was i to judge. 

mr. hussnain too had boxes stacked in his flat, though he had moved into the building 5 months prior to tom. 

but i wasn't interested in mr. hussnain, i'd never even bumped into to him in the lobby. he was simply just another man in the windows i'd stare at. 

tom's neighbours to the right -- well my right, were mrs. tull and mr. tull -- an old married couple and they sure did fight like one. sometimes i could hear their shouts from my side of the building which was impressive at their tender age. 

to my left, tom's neighbour was a man much like him, daniyal. a single man who woke up at 5 to pray and left for work at 7. 

daniyal was proper about everything, even the creases on his shoes. nothing was ever out of place in his apartment and he followed the same schedule every morning. daniyal had moved in about a year ago and i had my bets that he was a virgo. 

tom's flat belonged to shayla and what a lovely girl shayla was. i'd often bump into her at the corner store and we'd walk home. much like ada, shayla kept telling me things about her life i never asked about. 

like the fact she didn't like her boyfriend or the fact her mother used to hit her as a child. 

shayla's transparency was getting out of hand and it soon blew up in our faces. 

it had started with her telling me about her interest in exploring sex toys -- vibrators and the other lot of scary devices. i hadn't thought much of it at first, i was stupid like that. weeks went by and her advances were oblivious to me until she planted a short kiss on my mouth outside her flat. 

my 'go with the flow' approach to life didn't help this situation either.

shayla must have forgotten that her boyfriend was coming to visit that evening and his yelp from shock wasn't the best reminder either. 

picking up my garments from the floor while they screamed at each other wasn't my finest evening either nor was the walk i had to endure over to my side of the building. 

i watched them scream from my window and eventually around dawn, he went home. 

shayla moved away the following week and i never saw her again.

then tom came. less than a month later, he was running around shayla's flat with wheat biscuits in his mouth. 

there were times he'd sit by his stove which was most clear from my window and would simply stare at the floor. sometimes i'd catch him sitting on my couch, staring at the walls in front of him lost in thoughts so deep he wouldn't hear me place his cup of tea on the table by him.

much like tom there were times i got lost in my thoughts too. 

i thought about him the most, more than i ever thought of shayla, and my longing for him overwhelmed me. 

it was so often that i could only think of him with my teeth clenched. 

. 

i will finish this book, i will finish this book, i will finish this book that i have started -- come on manifest with me, i will finish this book-- 

vote and comment!!!!

-- 2/11/21