Bambi from across The Street

Somedays, I just sit here and stare at her. Somedays I stay so still and watch her, I get confused if I’m even there. She sits in the same spot across the street everyday. She smokes exactly two cigarettes and drinks a coffee. I wonder sometimes how bad that must be for her teeth. At the end of her cigarette and coffee breakfast, she stares deeply into a leather covered black book. I always assume she is reading, but this moment is unlike anything else she does. It’s almost as if whatever is written in the book is moving. As if it has come alive and she is watching it perform. The same way I stay still to watch her, she is so perfectly still to read the book.

Maybe it’s a diary.

Maybe it’s an extremely elaborate iPhone case. She could just be binging a show.

Maybe she is a murderer and she is going over her work.

Whatever it is, every morning she sits there and completes the routine. Every morning, I feel like I am apart of it. As if my distanced stares offer her support in her endeavors. It’s odd for someone to be so involved in your daily activities and have no idea who you are. I find myself never really seeking to know her. As she sits there, not knowing who is staring at her, I find comfort seeing her behave in her “natural” way. Like a deer roaming free without the knowledge of watchers, watching her routine has become almost majestic. A reliable part of my day that offers me comfort.

As I look out the window today to see her, she seems different. I mean she literally looks different. Not in a physical sense, but in an energetic sense. Every cigarette she removes from the carton is quivering between her fingers as if it is trying to break free. Her hands shake while she takes deeper, longer, drags from the cigarettes. Deeper and longer than anything I’ve noticed before. I watch her ignite and extinguish 5 cigarettes in the time I usually watch her smoke two. I sit there and feel immense concern for her. I think about going out and comforting her.

The thought doesn’t last long, I can’t seem to formulate a proper hypothetical introduction:

“Hi, I’ve been staring at you from my window for quite sometime. I see today you seem a little stressed, is everything ok?”

I decide to stay put and watch what she does next. I’m almost leaning in as if this is the final episode.

She reaches over for the coffee and takes a sip. I don’t know if it relaxes me to see her do something I recognized, but I did feel some ease come to me. She sips the coffee, with this pensive look on her face. Every sip seems to be more thoughtful than the last. The ease her sips gave me is slowly transforming into anxiety. What are you thinking about BAMBI?! You are supposed to just come past my window, be ok, and walk away. WHAT IS TROUBLING YOU?!

The questions I had for her screamed inside while I hid in silence and continued to stare. Everything she is doing today seems like a mystery and I’m hoping this episode ends well.

As I continue to watch, half way through her coffee, she stops. For the first time, she just stops and it seems as if whatever she had been thinking about was finally solved. She opens up her black book and becomes still as she reads, or watches, or whatever she is doing in there. Something about her feels at ease now. She closes the book. She sets it down. She walks away.

“MISS, you forgot your book!” I say it from the other side of my window. I feel I’m screaming at an actor not seeing the murderer right behind them. “What are you doing?! It’s right there!” Realizing like I always do that the person can not hear me, I take action. I put on my mask and run to the front door. As I run across the street, I wonder if I’m running to give the book back, or to have something of hers in my possession.

As I approach the book, the leather is more worn than I could have imagined. I look down the street to her, yelling “Miss” only to realize she is gone.

Somehow our worlds have finally collided. Somehow, with this book she is now a real, tangible, part of my experience. I decided to open the book. I didn’t know if it was wrong to, but I decided the only way I will know is by looking inside. I open the cover and read:

“You sit there as if you aren’t watching, but I know you are. I wish you would come over and say hello. I find myself sitting here sometimes just to put on a show for you. I hope my morning routine offers you comfort. For some reason, your eyes on the other side of the window have become part of me. I don’t know if that is weird or a reach. Without judging myself, I realize you are just a friend I have not met yet.”

I sit there and can’t believe what I am reading. I can’t fathom how my see through window could betray me. I turn the page to see pictures. Drawings.

She literally captured me in the moment. She saw me everyday I saw her. Some of the pictures are so good, I can vaguely remember which day it was. I get to the middle of the book and I finally find what she stares at so intensely. The book is missing a middle chunk of paper, and the cover is translucent. I hold it up as if I’m reading it and can see my window.

She had been staring at me through the book.

Everything about this scared me to death. I couldn’t sprint to my apartment fast enough. Once inside I rip off my mask and I sit back at my window, panting and staring at the ground.

What the hell just happened?!

Had Bambi been stalking me?!

If she is a stalker, what does that make me?

I lift my head to take a look out the window and see there is money on my windowsill. More cash than I had seen in person in my entire life. I quickly do a 360 to make sure whoever put this here isn’t here. Did she break in?

I’m frozen. I have no idea what to do next. I wish I could have just stayed home. I look at the cash and don’t want to touch it. As I sit in silence, staring through my window again, I watch her slowly walk across my view and sit on the bench. This time with no cigarettes, no coffee. She just sits there, and stares back at me.