“The Cleaners (tentative title)”
I notice that the curtains are the same faded blue from my previous visit before I reach out and pull one away from the rectangle window. Lights bombard my face and I squint, eyes adjusting to the colors from the neon sign facing the street. The sign is attached to one of the brick walls that make up the alley, and beneath it I can make out the outline of the door the sign points to. My sight travels down to the cobblestones covering the floor and then to the dumpster against the opposite wall.
Pulling back from the window, the curtain falls into place and I search for the latch. The latch resists my fingers, rust keeps it shut. I put my palm against the metal that fans out from the handle and slam my other hand against it, etching the outline into my skin before it moves and the window is unlocked.
I shake my sore hand before turning my palms up to dig my nails into the bottom wood of the window and lift. The window moves, I change hands to push the window up with my shoulder and push down on the sill with the other until I can stick out my head without bending over.
The alley continues at one side, but not the other, making a backwards ‘L’ shape instead of an upside-down ‘T’. At the end of the adjacent alley, there is a large green door with the top corners cut creating two extra sides like half an octagon.
Hearing another window open, I look around, craning my neck, until I see a woman a few stories above the dumpster drop a bag down. It hits the edge and bursts open, spilling empty bottles, dirty diapers, used soup cans, and a milk carton, but the woman’s window is closed.
Pulling back from the window, I knock over a chair as I turn and hurry to the bed. I pick up the overnight bag I dropped earlier, open it, dump its insides on the bed, grab the binoculars between the face soap and the shampoo bottles, and return to the widow. I lean out on my hip toward the green door, one hand holding onto the upper sill while the other holds the binoculars to my eyes.
Through the binoculars a small door, too small for a normal sized human, closes. The alleyway is empty except for a white, child-sized creature with an egg shaped head; the pointed end turned down like it was a chin. The door opens again and two smaller ones come out, one blue, like the curtains, and the other a brick red.
A truck passes the entrance of the alley and I turn to look at it go by, then back at the three creatures. They’ve paused at the intersection and their faceless heads peer around the corner before walking to the spilled trash. I climb back into the room, put the binoculars on the sill and lean my elbows on next to them, my hands cupping my face. The larger white one bends over on its hands and knees, the red one climbs on top of the first and the blue picks up the trash, climbs the other two, dumps the trash in the dumpster and then climbs down to get more.
I stand up from the awkward position, turn and right the over turned chair. Several years ago, when I looked out this window, the alleyways were littered with people and trash; people with homes threw trash out of their windows onto those without. Leftovers, and used papers, and plastic wrappings, and stained clothes, and broken china, toys, and chairs were cluttered so close together that the police and the trash men couldn’t clean the cobblestones.
I don’t remember the state of the room itself but I do recall what drew me to the window the first time I was here. It was hot and I opened the window when I noticed something white moving through the garbage below. Leaning out, I watched as it picked up a piece of trash, carried it to the dumpster and then went to get another piece of trash. All night I watched it work until the sun started to rise and it retreated to the green door and out of sight.
(feedback please? I think I'm done now.
Times edited x3)
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