The days are slow because i have to watch them

My back window overlooks the backyard of a couple that i know just recently got married.

In my idle moments, i push my chair to the window and sit with my magazine and cup of tea, well sometimes there is wine in the cup, and then i flip aimlessly through the magazine i have read over 10 times. I watch them sit on the tiny stools at the back of their house sometimes. He with his beer and she with her pen and paper. She is always writing something. It looks like he talks, she listens and writes. I wonder what that is about.

I like to imagine what it is she could be writing. It is too far away and i have never owned a pair of those fancy binoculars. Besides, that would count as snooping. What i am doing now can be excused as the view i get for the many shillings i pay in rent.

I imagine she is a writer, she looks like one. She wears fat spectacles, the fancy ones that the girls wear these days. She is probably in her 20's. I imagine she is writing his memoirs. He does not look like he uses his hands much anymore.

His head is always bent in thought but his look is distant. I imagine he misses home. I wonder why he just doesn't go back.

I never see them laugh...well except for that day when she wore the dress and he wore the suit and they came back and sat outside drinking expensive wine. They seemed happy and i was envious.
Now, she is always writing. He is always talking. They never raise their voices. It has been two months. I watch and count days because i have all of the time to do that.

You see, i used to be a busy bee. I never knew my neighbors, never knew their habits. I had my own life and lived in my little bubble with my fancy friends. It was a quiet exciting existence. I took a bike to work everyday after i woke up one day and sold my car because hours in traffic were not worth it.

That bike threw me one rainy day when it tried to make a turn and the calculation was not good enough. Plus the road was slippery. The oncoming car didn't see me until it was too late i think, and then i think the driver swerved hard because all he hit was my thigh. They tell me it is a femoral shaft fracture.

I am 26years old. When the doctors start to talk, i zone out. They do not say the words i want to hear and so i choose to not listen. But my brother does. He stands there taking it all in because he likes to know things, he likes to be intelligent. Also, he wants me to be okay.

He stayed with me for a while but even he couldn't stand my new found attitude as a recluse. He checks on me now and again to bring food. He doesn't know that i pay the maid extra to buy me bottles of cheap wine and hide them where he cannot find them. If he did he would be mad and he wouldn't bring money anymore.

Or he would take me to live with him and then i wouldn't ever know how the story of the old China man and his new bride ever ended. Perhaps i should give up wine and use the money to buy those binoculars.