heart over brain

Part 1

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I am not a pervert.

Yes, I live across the street of the local prison and can see the building, the cell tract and some of the windows from my living room. Yes, I own an amateur telescope – for watching the stars and blurry spots on the moon. And yes, I occasionally point said telescope to things other than the sky, like said windows across the street, but that does not make me a pervert.

I don't stand there in my living room watching the ongoings with my panties down and rub myself. I do not do that. I would never.

I look through the bars of the prison windows every now and then to make sure everything is fine. That the guards are doing their job – they surprisingly are  – and no inmates commit some crazy acts of violence – they don't, not really, at least, if you don't count the occasional fist fight.

I am not a pervert. I am cautious. I do live across the street of a prison after all.

Maybe I am a little bit strange, but not much stranger than my 70+ neighbours downstairs who watch other people all day, every day. Sometimes with binoculars, in broad daylight, then rant about what they see to everyone who doesn't run away fast enough.

If I happen to watch, say, a guy who is a little bit hot through the bars in the east corner cell, with a face I just can't look away from and the body of a model, I don't think more of it as if passing the same guy on a street. Hey, looks handsome, moving on to daily business, nothing more.

So, not a pervert.

I don't need to explain myself to people for that; I shouldn't need to. God knows what everyone else is doing when alone at home.

Then why the hell can't I stop thinking of excuses for an argument I will never have? Why am I trying to justify my behaviour? I never told anybody I do that, not even my best friend Elly, no one knows, no one will ever ask me to explain myself.

I step away from the telescope with a long sigh and rub my tired eyes. They are dry and hurt because I've been staring too long.

He is not there tonight anyway. I am putting myself through this moral dispute for nothing.

He isn't there, staring out the window of his cell and brooding the night away like every other day since he transferred in a few weeks ago.

Not that I looked at him every day since then, I didn't, just sometimes. I have a life and friends and real, normal hobbies.

I slide down on the couch next to the telescope to the buzzing of my phone. My friends are out tonight, and Elly keeps bombarding me with pictures of things that I missed out on by staying home – fancy drinks, Joe who's back in town, a blurry snap of a guy who is "totally my type".

I roll my eyes.

He is not my type. Because he isn't behind bars.

God, I am a pervert. And strange and gross and good that I did not go out with my friends because I am such a weirdo, and I shouldn't interact with normal people. I should be put in a closed room too.

My cat Elvis jumps on my lap and purrs at me. I absent-mindedly scratch his ear and scroll through the group chat while the TV reruns my favourite show without my attention, until –

BOOM.

The cat runs. The windows wobble. My breath catches.

Sitting tensed I listen for something more, but nothing. For a long time, nothing.

I get up from the couch and step back to the window, look out, still nothing.

Everything is perfectly peaceful. The trees in the yard stand still with branches weighed down by the last bits of the melting snow, the dark road towards the house is full of cars that are actually not allowed to park there, like every Friday night. The prison building is still grey and unwelcoming, the fence is tall and thick and high.

Not a living soul in sight on the street.

Maybe it's just the teens in the neighbourhood playing a prank again? I hate them with a passion, never mind that I am only a handful of months older than them.

I shake my head to myself and fall back on the couch.

"I love you," the girl in the TV tells her inhuman lover with a tear-streaked face, they kiss passionately, and I am instantly fully immersed in their supernatural drama instead of studying for my life-defining exam come Monday morning.

The scene isn't over yet, when the first blue and red lights blink through the window behind me. They cover my stuffy living room in eerie shadows.

I stand up again to look out.

Police cars and fire trucks pull up in the parking lot in front of the prison building. A lot, maybe all of them and more. The outside is blinking and swirling, but what exactly is going on I can't see, not even with my telescope, because the fence is in the way.

My hands start to tremble. Am I scared? Excited? I can't tell.

I open the window a slit, maybe I can hear something. Car doors open and close, the wind howls, nothing more. No sirens, no yells, no talking.

Strange.

Maybe this is unrelated to the boom? It's not the first time all hell breaks loose for nothing. Most times it's just a practice routine, rarely a wrong alarm, but basically never a true emergency. In all three years I've lived next to the prison, nothing at all has ever happened there.

Maybe because it's only a small, local prison. Crimes worse than robbery or fraud are punished elsewhere. There is no high security tract here, no murderers, supposedly, I researched thoroughly when moving in. Uselessly so, I couldn't afford to rent in a better part of the city, I would have moved in even if Jack the Ripper himself was my neighbour.

I close the window and check if the front door is properly locked anyways. It is. I wouldn't want any criminal seeking refuge with me by chance.

I should maybe go and find my cat, to calm the little monster down, but on my second step through the long hallway I turn around. I throw a jacket over my hoodie, put on slippers and I am out the door before the normal, logical part of my brain can stop me.

I jog down the hundred thousand stairs – elevator hasn't been working in weeks, out the building, around the house and down the street along the prison fence.

My brain cells do come to work eventually when I am the only one of my usually nosy neighbours outside.

I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be doing this. This is more than healthy curiosity. If truly something bad happened in the prison, I might be in danger.

I step closer to the wall, trying to hear better. But there is still nothing. People are definitely doing something, I hear footsteps, rustling, lots of noises that sound quite alarming, but nobody talks.

What the hell?

How do they not talk? This is seriously weird.

I step back from the wall, look it up and down, but up close I can see even less than from my living room window. Uncertain I shift my weight from one leg to the other. I can't decide if I should keep hunting for excitement down here, trying to hear something after all, or if I should go back up to my telescope, trying to see the events.

The wind picks up and has me shivering. The skin on my legs freezes over beneath my leggings.

Telescope it is.

I step back, and –

Suddenly the floor is closer to my face than my feet. Pain sparks in my knees. I yelp in confusion.

"Watch out!" someone snaps at me. 

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