I am restless, yet a curious calm pervades my world.
Beyond the gentle hum of the air conditioner, hundreds of houses are perched on top of each other. Each contains its own story. Children look forward to, or dread, the vacations that have just started. Men bemoan their lives. Women count their jewellery. A servant girl thinks about the security guard who’s been flirting with her. Power point presentations are created, meals are cooked. Some do up their apartments one room at a time, using the cash that comes from onsite assignments. Others plan for a career change. A few young men want to have sex and plan a party. Teenage girls plan for a movie the next day. An elderly lady fumes at the way a household is run. An elderly gentleman quietly spends time with his grandchild and pretends to live. A child sobs himself to sleep. A woman gazes out of her window, thinking of a time when she dreamt, and lived.
In another apartment a couple of blocks away, a group of people much closer to me than all these strangers have retired for the night. Tomorrow shall be a change of scene for all of them, maybe even the beginning of a new chapter. This family of five will be in four different directions the coming week and each shall pursue his or her own destiny, the heart wrapped in fear, yet hoping a little too. Clouds of painful grey occupy the minds, and there is a baggage that the backs carry. Over the next few days, we shall be occupied, busy, laugh with others, spend time with other loved ones. But inside we will wait, for we know that another time of reckoning has come. And this time, the reins are in our hands. And in the hands of a link that could be the weakest or the strongest. We don’t know. That’s why we fear. That’s why we hope.
And I? I read my Death Comes to Pemberley with absorption and enjoyment, yet my eyes keep flickering to the phone next to me; after all, it’s that time of the day. I am restless, yet a curious calm pervades my world.
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