One Eye Less

Brown Textile Wallpapers

He unlocked the door with a metallic clatter. The beige wallpapered door panel slowly turned to the side. They both quietly observed the empty interior without stepping inside. Old, stale air blew into their faces.

He entered first with an indescribable serenity.

"This is it. This is the apartment."

She, on the other hand, took a little more time, but she too would soon move to her new home.

As she slid into the interior, she ran her fingers along the wall. A warm but also stale feeling greeted the fingertips.

"Brown textile wallpaper," she said in a fascinated tone.

He responded casually, "Yes, they are in almost every apartment these days."

She continued to walk through the apartment. Artificial floors, old wallpapered walls and the subtle veils of color over the years. Every now and then a few armchairs, a table. An orphaned mirror. There wasn't much furniture. And it wouldn't be.

She approached the spacious windows that offered a view of the shared balcony. The balcony ran along the facade over several apartments, which were connected like a corridor. She gathered a horrifying impression of the smooth, brick-brown facade of the other units.

Expressionless window openings completed her certainty. And she sighed.

"Well, that's it. But at least this."

He closed up to her and also looked at the pale view.
"

We still got this. Luckily."

##

The night came about without complaint, but she still woke up. An inner restlessness drove her out of bed. Moonlight enveloped the atmosphere of the apartment in a very comfortable scenario. She slowly walked across the room, instinctively to the spot where she had looked at the other apartments the day before.

Again she approached the spacious window and peered though it. Was it trepidation in her mind or was it reality? A small car from the last century parked on the spacious balcony. A rusty Puch 500.

Confused she returned to bed.

Early in the morning, curiosity got her out of bed again. Had she seen this correctly during the night? Cautiously, she approached the balcony for supervision. Sure enough, the Puch 500 was still there.

And mist sticked to the inside of its windows. Suspiciously, she narrowed her eyes, her perception trying to decipher the colours and shades behind the dull dew.

What is inside this car?

Suddenly a grimace appeared on the window pane!

With big clear eyes and a white face made of fur. It was a cat. Its gaze turned helplessly to the sky, with an expression of despair. Desperation of a caged creature.

Startled, she backed away. The cat's face was burnt into her mind. Searchingly, she looked around her.

Is there a door to the balcony?

And indeed there was. The wide wooden wall to the left of the window turned out to be a large sliding door.

With a jerk, she pulled the door aside and thus opened the way to the outside, to the wide balcony. And looked into the eye of a woman in a nightgown.