The window of opportunity (short story)

I wake up to the sound of glass shattering downstairs. I feel every ching! in my marrow and my mutterings add to the cacophony before I give in and make it out of bed. I drag my feet towards the stairs and halfway down I’m greeted with a singing “good morning!” from my flatmate, Thaïs. She’s named after a goddess and is always bustling with supernatural energy no matter the time of day. She’s sending empty bottles, cigarette butts and other late-night souvenirs flying into a black trash bag with youthful enthusiasm. A wine bottle breaks with a crash and I wince. Over by the window my friend Roland who’d spent the night on the couch is pressing a pillow over his head.

“Good morning” I say to the room, already in better spirits. I love coming downstairs after a good night to take in the damage. I feel the same pride and nostalgia as I imagine Napoleon felt surveying the bloody aftermath at Austerlitz. Every half-filled glass and empty bottle tells a story about last night and just looking around the room fills in a few blanks, bringing me back. It is an unwritten rule in my house that I organise the soirées and that Thaïs, for the most part, takes care of the fall-out. Our intricate model of complementing efforts enables our house to put on a show for three or four nights straight in a good week. Thaïs is 20-something, comes from Paris and is halfway through her internship here in London. She’s a petite freckle-speckled girl with chestnut hair and a permanent smile and we get along just great.

“Ahah, not so fast!” I say as she carries some glasses towards the kitchen. I unburden her of one of them, half-full, and knock back what’s left of the drink. I recognised it as one I’d poured myself less than 6 hours ago and now I’m definitely awake. I tip-toe my way barefoot across the sticky floor up to the beer-marinated living room carpet. From across the couch table I look at Roland laying there under a blanket and with the pillow pressed to his ear.

“Hey!”

“What time is it?” asks Roland.

“Maybe 6, maybe 7. PM.” I say. I look out the window and can’t remember when the sun goes down these days but it’s about to disappear behind the brewery out front.

“Shit” Roland says.

“Yea, it happens. I’m gonna go grab a bite, want to come with?” And he puts on his pants and I put on my slippers and then the September breeze greets us on the street.

From my place we take a left and walk 20 metres until we get on Brick Lane, one of the main arteries of East London. People travel here from far and wide just to feel the pulse and the street is full of them, looking for a place to eat or grab a drink. A stone’s throw from my place there’s a food market in the old Truman brewery and we get something to eat and if the headache wasn't enough, my appetite reminds me that I forgot to have dinner last night. Then Roland takes off back home to return to fight another day.

On the way back I breathe in the atmosphere of the veritable street festival unfolding on Brick Lane every weekend. You can smell the weed burning and the meat cooking and the sun is just setting and it’s all good. I zig-zag across the street between outcasts of every kind and families with kids and then I’m jumped from behind. Two tiny arms are thrown around me and a cheek leans against mine but I don’t try any karate stuff because I know who it is, of course I do, who else could it be. I turn around and our lips meet and Ellie is a terrible kisser but she makes up for it with her enthusiasm. We make out for a bit in front of street vendors, kids, musicians, restaurant promoters and anybody else who cares to watch before I lead her away by the hand.

“How are you?” she asks with her Taiwanese accent which permits her to avoid pronouncing half the letters in that sentence, especially the r, but with one of those good-natured and genuine smiles which makes up for a lot.

“On top of the world” I say, and if she was good before, she’s better now when I sneak my hand under her blouse and caress her back. She’d spent the night at my place but had snuck out early to get changed. She’s wearing loose white pants and a sleeveless light blue top that stops short below her ribs. She looks great and I feel pretty bad but that’s normal so it’s all right.

We manoeuvre the street two abreast and arm in arm and then we’re in front of the door of my brick townhouse again. The door was painted dark blue once but over time graffiti artists and hooligans had all lent their own hand to its appearance. Next to the keyhole someone had written “love is everywhere” in black marker. Reading this familiar line with a familiar smile I realise I forgot my keys.

I walk over to the window. It’s composed of two sliding halves and the bottom one is inlaid with frosted glass. I stand on my toes to see above the frosted portion and into the flat, then gently tap it and gesture at Thaïs to open the door. The girls embrace in a giggle and when I come down from the toilet a few minutes later they’re both cleaning the place up and exchanging anecdotes from last night. I pull out the vacuum cleaner and join in.

Thaïs heads out for a dinner somewhere and when she’s gone Ellie comes up to me, wanting to be kissed. I met her a year ago fresh off the plane from Taipei and have since been instructing her in the ways of western culture.

“I got some magic mushrooms from my friends. Do you want to try it?” she says to me with a mischievous smile. She’s a quick learner.

So we blast some music and try out the goods. She takes half of what her friends prescribed as a good dose, and I take the other one and a half dose. The dried fungi go down roughly. They take an unholy amount of chewing and taste terrible. We end up with dirt in our mouths and I rinse it down with an almost-full beer I find standing in the bookshelf.

We go to replenish supplies at the off-license down the road and leave the music going. I get a bottle of rum, some rolling papers and three four-packs of Jamaican lager beer for good measure. I brought my keys this time and we dance our way back into my living room to the beat of Ellie’s playlist.

To set the scene I go into the kitchen and pop a few ice cubes into a glass, chased by rum, a lime wedge and a drizzle of cola. The floor is sticky and needs some mopping but apart from that, the only traces left of last night are now a bunch of washed glasses drying next to the sink, and yes, still the headache. I think of sending some messages into the ether to invite some friends but first I want to see how the mushrooms hit.

We sit down in the sofa and it’s dark out now and the streetlights invite themselves into the living room through the window. Ellie shows me some photos of last night which explain the bruises. But I don’t feel hurt I feel fine. More than fine. At first I’m not sure if it’s the rum or the mushrooms kicking in. A few minutes later I’m quite sure what it is.

Ellie says something funny and I laugh as euphoria sets in. First as background hums and silver-linings the very smallest of efforts. The way I grab my glass and have a sip suddenly strikes me like an unprecedented act of fine-motoric dexterity. As I swallow, the drink itself unveils new dimensions of taste I had not experienced before. The grog envelops and tickles my tongue, nice and cool. Then the sweet cola and sour lime pronounce themselves before yielding to the heart-warming fire of the rum which spreads inside me out to my very fingertips.

I look at Ellie and we’re both tripping. Suddenly this sofa, a broke chiropractor's wet dream, seems so comfortable, so accommodating, I never want to leave it.

I lay my arm around Ellie and pull her close, thriving in the moment then suddenly losing myself in the study of a shadow in a corner. Smaller shadows play within it showing new, subtle archaic patterns whenever I blink. Colours emerge from the grayscale to fill the patterns my mind generate like in a lucid dream. A kaleidoscope of visions overlap and melt seamlessly into one another and I recognise the parts but not the whole. As soon as I try to focus on one thing in particular it blurs out and another shape comes sneaking in from the periphery of my vision. Then, I smell tobacco burning and know that a cigarette is just what it takes to elevate this experience even further. I look out the window and spot the source of my temptation in the figure of a plump young man in a grey t-shirt.

I flip the switch locking the upper and lower part of the sliding window frames together and pull the top part of the window down. I climb up on the couch and lean my head out.

“Hey man! How are you?”

The guy outside jerks back at the sound of the voice from my floating head. He wears a helmet and stands next to a parked moped and reacts like people usually do when I catch them pissing on my door. But this isn’t one of those nights and he’s not making any trouble and I’m not looking for any. He pulls the cigarette from his lips and looks at me, not sure what to respond.

“I’m good. You?”

“Magical my friend, magical!” I lean out the window proper with only one foot left in the sofa on the other end. “Say, I don’t mean to intrude, and I hate to ask, but is there any chance you have one of those cigarettes to spare?”

He sees my play and takes a breath. He didn’t do anything wrong and I don’t know why he felt guilty to begin with. All I want is a smoke and now, knowing my intentions, he returns my smile with a nod while the flaps of his unbuttoned helmet swing freely.

“Sure man. I only have rollers, if that’s OK?” and he fumbles around in his pockets for the stuff.

“Yes, yes, thank you. Be with you in a second” I say and grab two beers from the couch table before climbing out through the window.

I offer him one but he can’t drink right now, he’s still working. And I see from his moped what he means. He introduces himself as Albert, and when he’s not delivering pizzas he studies computer engineering. He’s a nice guy and hands me the kit to roll a cigarette. I must’ve rolled thousands in my days but now it’s not going too well. The stuff won’t stay still. I spill the tobacco on the ground, crumple the paper and generally make such a mess of it that I gladly accept his offer to roll me one. I lean up against the wall to keep my balance.

“Would you like one as well?” he says and behind me Ellie is poking her head out the door with one of her world-famous smiles. She says yes please but does not have any shoes on so Albert walks up to the door, shakes her offered hand and then rolls her one. We chat and finish the cigarettes and I ask if I can have another. He happily obliges but before he pulls his kit out again I invite to come in for a sit-down, to re-charge before he goes on carry out his other duties. One more look at Ellie’s smile has him convinced and I close the door behind us.

Albert is taller than me and wider than two of me. He puts his helmet on the table and he’s got short hair, a few pimples and is being overly polite the whole time. He’s a humble young man and I ask a hundred questions about where he’s from and what he wants to be when he finishes his studies. Eventually, he accepts a beer.

I decide it’s better not to talk about the trip too much right now but at the same time I am being catapulted through the universe and nothing really looks the same. The depth of the room is off somehow and the light is different and timeless patterns dance in every shadow. I like the idea of keeping a secret like this and try to roll with it, curious if he will notice or not.

Albert sits between Ellie and me in the sofa and he rolls cigarettes without me even asking although I happily incinerate them one by one to keep him going. But then I feel an absence. A hunger not of the stomach. There’s something missing and it’s decidedly some weed. Ellie does not disagree.

“I’ll be back in a heartbeat” I say. I climb out through the open window and land hard on the concrete pavement to the knowledge that my slippers are not great shock absorbers. I take it slow down the street and goddamnit, the streetlights are dancing now and I see colours in motion. Colours which are not content to stay static, no sir. They shift and evolve and I’m certainly laughing out loud and there’s still a good crowd out but at least the kids have left the street so I laugh as loud as I want. I walk up to the ATM and withdraw 100 pounds in 20’s, then take a left onto Hanbury street, the one parallel to mine. There’s a shop there called One Nation with a bunch of small flags from different countries hanging across the storefront. In the shop window they’ve got bongs, grinders, pipes and other paraphernalia on display. I walk inside and exchange greetings with the man at the till who is even higher than I am. Then I round a shelf in the corner of the little shop and come up to a white door with a camera aimed at it. I smile at the camera, open the door and find myself in a small corridor with another door at the end of it. I do not walk through the next door however – never walk through that door! – but merely stop a few paces short of it and look to the left. There is a plum-sized hole drilled through the wall at about eye-level. I fold a £20 note and hover it around the hole. Soon enough two fingers emerge impatiently to grab the note and then retire. I hear a rustling, and a second later a two-gram bag of what passes for marijuana is extended to me. I pocket it and turn back home, carefully navigating the increasingly uneven sidewalk and grinning as I go.

Once back on my street I follow the music and the sound of Ellie and Albert chatting. I throw the bag of weed through the open window and climb in after it. I almost lose balance as I’m straddling the window frame but this is not my first rodeo and I regain my balance before sinking down into the couch next to Albert. His rolling kit is on the table and I pull out one of my long rolling papers and unceremoniously go about rolling a J. I’m feeling more grounded and my hands are steady this time, as if the drinks and the mushrooms cancel each other out. It was nonsense ever worrying about seeing monsters appearing, I have it all under control. I roll the joint and it is just perfect and burns very well. Taking a drag, I feel like I can trace the weed, down my throat, past my lungs. My heart pumps the potency and in a beat or two it reaches the head and Messiah! this is what I’m talking about.

I feel the draft from the window caressing the back of my head, but it turns out to be Ellie. I push the upper part of the window shut none the less, just to avoid confusion. I’m lucid, and I close my eyes and reach for Ellies hand and I find it and ours come to rest in Albert’s lap. If anybody would have cared it could have gotten weird but weird was everywhere and also very far away right now.

The song changes to something more upbeat and I decide it’s time for the disco lights, and go about plugging them in. I have a few small ones laying around and as I connect them to the grid the room starts flowing in red, green and blue pulses.

Behind us in the couch, people would pass my window now and then. Suddenly, some girls stop by it and put their drinks down on the windowsill outside. We can see their shadows through the frosted bottom part of the window and before I know it, I’m pushing the window open and poking my head out with a big smile.

“Good evening, strangers,” I say and they take a step back and then Ellie’s smiling face appears next to mine and then that of a slightly confused pizza delivery guy and the disco lights are spinning behind us and I probably have eyes like flying saucers. “We saw you through the window and I thought it would only be polite to say hello”.

“Well hello” one of them says. The accent is decidedly British, but not of the kind I often hear in these parts or among my friends.

The two are an interesting pair; one is as big as the other is small. The big girl is dark skinned and as tall as Albert, only wider. Paradoxically she’s wearing tight-fitting black yoga pants and a tight black sports top and she could crush a man with that bosom. She sips a canned cocktail and looks at me with shy eyes. The other girl is so short she only just reaches above the big girl’s hipbones. Under other circumstances I might have been tempted to make a joke about shooting her out of a cannon, but right now my mind is very far away from making jokes at other people’s expense. She’s also wearing tight fitting clothes and a bit too much makeup but she’s in good shape and looks like she’s from somewhere around the Mediterranean.

We chat for a while through the window and after introducing Ellie and Albert, the conversation continues by its own accord. The two girls smoke outside, and I set fire to another joint inside. I ask if they would do us the great honour of gracing us with their presence and they accept with disbelieving laughs. I open the door for them and shake their hands as they enter. I introduce myself as Max and they are Louisa and Agnes. Agnes, the short one, is making up for her shortcomings by doing most of the talking and I give her plenty of chances because I don’t feel the need to talk about myself, or anything associated with it. The girls sit down in the armchairs facing the sofa and the window. I am burning with genuine curiosity about these people and, more than anything, want to make them feel as much at ease as I am.

Having finished his second beer, Albert declares that he has to get back to work. I explain five times that he’s more than welcome back anytime. We embrace as he leaves and I’m sad to see him go. I felt that I had seen his soul, and that it was good.

Then I bring a bowl of ice, some booze and mixers into the living room and put them on the couch table. I take the cap off the rum bottle and throw it out the window. It’s something I learned when living with a couple of Finns. It shows commitment; that you’re here to stay. I get some shot glasses as well and wish the ladies welcome proper.

I feel good. Real good. But it’s a Saturday night after all and there’s still something missing. I call Ashley.

20 minutes later I hear Ashley pull up outside. He drives a Mercedes because business is good these days and I lean out the window, hanging my hand out. He parks and comes up to shake it.

“The door is closed my friend, tonight we use the window” and he pulls his loose-hanging pants up and scratches his head. He looks at me and my eyes are gleaming but I’m not kidding. I’ve known Ashley for more than a year. He’s fairly tall, dark skinned with an athletic build and short, curly hair. He’s also missing a front tooth. Just one, but all of it. He’s been in prison a couple of times so he’s a helluva chess player, and not the kind of guy to back down from a challenge either. He nimbly climbs inside.

He gives Ellie a familiar hug and upon seeing the noticeably entertained girls, he says to me:

“So hey Max, listen, I’ve got a friend with me tonight. He’s all right, do you think he could come inside?”

“Sure man, no worries, show him how it’s done,” and Ashley sticks his head out the window and gestures to his friend in the passenger seat. A dark, bearded fellow with a good-natured smile emerges. He scales the windowsill and I take his hand and pull him inside. I hand him a beer and while they’re all busy stating their names, I grab a book from my bookshelf. It’s Huxley’s “Doors of Perception” and I slide three £20 bills in between some pages. I go into the kitchen and Ashley follows, but when he opens the book he shakes his head. A bag is normally £50 but I don’t have any change so he leaves a 20 in there, adds the tiny bag, and hands the book back to me. It may be some kind of Pavlovian thing but who cares, I love that guy. When he’s around stuff happens. Stuff happens when he’s around.

I make him a drink and in the kitchen we’re speaking about the flavour and textual transition of the rum and coke, and I hope he can feel what I feel. Back in the living room I pull some chairs up from the dining table and place them next to the girls so that the guys can sit down.

Then I put a plate on the table and proceed to chop up the white powder, racking it into neat lines. “Now this is my kind of rum and coke” I say and snort one line, take a shot and then do one for the other nostril. Things were beginning to look real good.

Some people drink, some smoke, others drink coffee or do drugs. That’s all right by me and I am no exception but what really gets me going is when you manage to combine a variety of these ingredients and make them work together in hedonistic symbiosis. The alcohol takes the edge of the hangover and my inhibitions while the mushrooms add a surreal element to reality itself, as well as a discharge of endorphins. The weed relaxes my muscles and the coke heightens my senses, multiplying the sensation of everything else. In the background the nicotine from the tobacco and the sugar and caffeine from the cola in my drink make their modest contributions to this sensory safari. Thanks to experience or plain dumb luck manage to get the proportions just right, and next to me is a pretty girl who loves me and facing me are people I am sure are wonderful people and it’s almost summer and there’s not a trouble haunting me or I just can’t recall them but it’s all the same for now. I’m alive and nothing can stop me and I see the book on the table and think about those lines of Huxley where he talks about what some substances can do. Perhaps the brain and nervous systems and sensory organs are not productive but eliminative. Perhaps each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him, and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. Perhaps the function of the brain is to protect us from this overwhelming, confusing and largely irrelevant knowledge, by shutting most of it out, leaving only that very small selection of experiences which is likely to be practically useful. Perhaps with some substances one can open up the flood gates to nirvana for a while. Well, if my brain is a limiting filter, it’s leaking right now and the cosmos is seeping through.

I pass the plate around and the girls are only too happy to help themselves, but Ashley or his friend don’t touch the stuff. I put my arm around Ellie while I feel the rotation of the earth in deep space. I snicker to myself, delighting in the fact that these people, with such limited time to spend on this planet, choose to spend it here, with me, with us. Right on.

I’m staying out of the conversations as much as I can unless I interject just to further it. I can tell that Agnes wants to have a piece of me and I let my eyes wander over her, too. She has a nice body, albeit a miniature one. But I have Ellie and that is all I need. To leave no room for illusions or disappointment I look Agnes in the eyes, then pull Ellie close and tie my tongue in a knot around hers. Message received.

The plate keeps spinning and I realise that I do not yet know the name of Ashley’s friend. I address this fact, and extend my hand to him across the table:

“Better late than never; I’m Max”

His name is Junior. He didn’t tell me whose junior he is, but I do not press for details.

The mood is good and the lights are good and the music is great. We chat about profound nonsense and I’m perfectly content to tend to the needs of my guests. I refill their glasses and make another trip out the window to get some drinks. Then the door knocks. I open the door and there is our old friend, bringing gifts.

“Albert! Good to see you my friend, good to see you! But what are you knocking on the door for, you know the drill tonight.”

“Hey yea sorry, sorry, but I brought some pizzas. I told my boss there was nobody at the address and it was nearby, so... And I got some beers around the corner.”

“Say no more and come right in. You know the gang, and here’s Ashley and Junior. Guys, this is Albert, an old friend.”

Ellie is on him with a hug in no time, and the hugging continues with the other girls and then he shakes hands with the guys. He puts the pizzas down on the table; one of them pepperoni and the other vegan or something but most of us are too coked up to even think about eating at this point so we leave it undefiled on the table as a testament to Albert’s generosity.

Then the inevitable happens. That is, when you leave men and women in a room together. When I come back from the bathroom Agnes is sitting in Junior’s lap and Louisa is sitting in Ashley’s lap. It’s getting about time for the guys to leave and cash in their winnings. Albert says his goodbyes but leaves a mountain of tobacco and some filters on my table.

When they leave they all climb out the window. Except for Louisa, and I don’t protest – it’s made of glass after all. I close the door behind her, turn and lock eyes with Ellie. And there begins a story I’ll preserve for another time.