The Fall of Man

Part II chapter 5

Chapter 5

Just a week later, Noah stands at a tall, handsome window in a small apartment. He has been relocated within the hospital’s residential block of respite accommodation, a towering hive of cellmates all of whom he is told are in the process of overcoming – or succumbing to – one ailment or another.

From his vantage point at the window, the adjacent building is perhaps twelve feet away. He is close enough to see the curled corners of cladding panels on its façade and the finger-shaped smears of grease across the glass of the windows opposite. As a result of this closeness, he has no view to speak of, despite being on the thirty-fourth floor. He can see no sky, unless he presses his cheek against the glass and squints upwards. The sun touches lightly on his room for a few scant minutes each morning while it is still low on the horizon and far to the east, and again for the same amount of time each evening, just before it sets away to the west.

The single glass pane doesn’t open to admit fresh air, or even let in much light; most of the day, his room is deep in shadow and – more often than not - gloom. Nevertheless it is his connection to the world outside. Through it he catches periodic glimpses of the two neighbours whose windows oppose his, across the short but cavernous divide outside. One lives a half storey above him, the other a half storey below. In his idle daydreams, he imagines names and lives for these two people with whom he has occasional visual encounters, always separated by the hermetically sealed walls of their apartments.

A short, stocky barrel of a man lives in the small flat overlooking Noah’s. He must be short because Noah only ever catches sight of his head and shoulders above the steel-grey window cill. He is also old, judging by the creases gathered around his eyes and across his forehead. Noah calls him Geoffrey. Dark curly hair, wispy at the temples, hangs down around a thick neck, and Geoffrey maintains meticulously his full, copper-brown beard. Heavy-framed glasses sit slightly low on his bulbous nose. He always dresses smartly – crisp white shirt collars ride high on his broad shoulders - and checks his reflection on a regular basis.

Geoffrey is away from home for long periods of time. Noah surmises that, as a travelling salesman, he brokers recording deals with up-coming musicians around the country. Or sells robots that will help around the house. Outside the apartment, his persona is probably suave and charming, but at home the mask crumbles to reveal a lonely, self-conscious man. He spends much of each short stay at home sat beside his kitchen window, feeding the pigeons that gather cooing on the cill with small diced cubes of bread through a gap in the ventilator. He dreams of flight – of one day sailing out through his unopenable window into the sunlight and being buffeted back and forth by warm gusts of air as he rises high above the city streets. While he is away, the birds flap about the window in anticipation of his return. Noah wonders if he is ever tempted to spike the morsels he feeds them with bicarbonate of soda – it would be fascinating to watch the ragged creatures swell to three or four times their normal selves and then pop out of the sky one by one.

Gillian lives directly below Geoffrey in world of heavy drapes, plump cushions and richly upholstered furniture. She shares her apartment with at least three sleek, jet-black cats. There might be ten or even a hundred of them prowling and purring about the candle-lit apartment, but Noah has only ever seen three gathered together at once. Gillian herself is a pale, spidery creature with long, sinewy limbs. She seems never to leave her opulent living room, and spends most of each day exercising while her cats languish around her. This is quite exciting for Noah – in a variety of velveteen outfits, she stretches her wiry form out across the floor in a well rehearsed routine of yogic positions. In between performances, she sprawls on a mound of elaborately embroidered and tasselled cushions in the small pool of light that intermittently gathers beside her living room window. From her lap, she absently picks at bowls of rice and green salad leaves with her fingers.