The View From My Window

I sit here staring out of my bedroom window, watching the lights on the boats far below me blinking in an organized chaos. Blue, green, red, white, green, red, blue, yellow... I hear the dogs howling at the moon, which I cannot see. Their howls reverberating in my ears like the sound of a comforting if slightly frightening friend.

I see the streetlights glowing constantly, never flickering. The headlights of the multitudes of cars passing beneath them, some noiselessly, some not so. Their lights reflecting off the gently receding water. The reservoir next to the slums will be empty until the next high tide. There's a boat stuck in the middle of it. It wasn't able to get to the sea in time. Blue, green, blue, red, yellow, blue...

There's a drunkard staggering across the road, hooting and yelling catcalls at a woman hurriedly rushing home from work to see if her eight year old son has the flu or not.

Even now at half past twelve at night, there are scruffy kids in threadbare and filthy football jerseys, playing in the dirt, jumping in the puddle that formed near the gate. The gate that separates the high rise building from the slum. the gate over which children keep looking, wishing their mothers and maids would allow them to get into that puddle

I see the Queen's necklace in the background, made up of shimmering streetlights with large obnoxious, buzzing red neon signs as rubies. Then as it gets later, the streetlights go off, the boat-lights too. Now the only light is coming from the half moon hanging lazily in the sky, taking so much time to move its way towards the horizon. For a few moments there is sheer blackness as a few clouds cover its pockmarked face. Everything is peaceful. Even the dogs have stopped baying. Darkness. Silence. Peace. Comfort. Warmth. Everything is asleep. And now, so am I…