After Work Hello. Hello. I’m not sure how to explain this. I know what I’m doing is wrong. It’s not right but I want to tell. It’s been going on for quite some time now. And if you’re going to listen, I want to tell. But I don’t want you to judge me, since you might not understand.   I live at the top fifth floor. When I’m in the staircase, I don’t turn the lights on. I leave it dark. I stay and listen. I hear people talking to each other, fighting or laughing. I hear how people watch tv, listen to music, wash the dishes. It smells of food. It smells of private homes. When I enter my apartment, I don’t turn on the lights. I walk up to the window in the living room and look out. I can see light in some windows. See a family eating their dinner, someone sitting and reading. The apartment across the road is dark. The lights are turned off in all the windows in that apartment.   I leave the camera on when I leave the apartment. And when I get back, I put in a new tape. After a while, they enter the apartment and turn on the light in the kitchen. They take their outdoor clothes off. I walk away from the window. It’s still dark in my apartment, but I feel unsecure when standing that close to the window. I sit down on a chair further into the room. I see them move about in the kitchen. He washes the dishes and clears the table. It’s not a big apartment. A kitchen, a living-room and a bathroom.   I’m sitting by the window filming again. They’re having sex. But they don’t turn off the lights in the apartment. I leave the camera running.   I am honest to the ones I trust. But what is the trust to let other’s view us based on? What makes them think no one will look? And how are you to know if you’re watching for too long, or what you’re allowed to watch? Who decided that after all? That I’m supposed to feel guilty? I think it’s just as much up to them who puts themselves on display. It’s not my fault that they don’t have any curtains? What are they thinking? That everyone shut their eyes when walking by their window? I’m not really doing anything, am I? Then there are those who pushes it even further. One sunday afternoon when I was riding my bike downtown, there was a man standing in a tunnel wanking off. It didn’t take long to pass by him, but I managed to look at him, into his eyes. He was so harmless. He didn’t seem to feel any guilt. Another time I stopped. It was an evening when I walked across the square. I wondered if it was the same man. He stood partly hidden in a front-door. When I stopped and looked at him, he turned around and walked away. Some things seems so essential that you can’t get them on your tongue. I can see him leaving his apartment. She remains, smoking. It’s odd, she… It’s as if she’s become another person since he left. She looks different, she moves differently. It’s as if she is what she’s meant to be.   I’ve gotten used to the darkness in my apartment. There’s some light from the streetlamps outside. I keep the apartment quite tidy, there’s not a lot of stuff lying around. But I don’t manage the dishes. I had some close friends over for dinner this weekend, but I still haven’t managed to deal with the dishes.   I feel so false. I can never keep my promises. I try to, but it’s so hard. Some of my friends have grown tired of me. Tired on everything I’ve promised. And now I’m tired of it too. As soon as I start to take interest in something, I start avoiding it. It’s better to quit at once, then the failure won’t be that big.   I met him a couple of blocks from home. I said hello and he seemed to recognize me as well. We were quite far away from where we live, actually. The next time we ran into each others, we said hello again. We stopped and talked, and he asked where we had met, how we knew each others. I told him that he lives in the house across the street from mine.   I don’t want to be dependant on anyone. I have what I need, and I always try to carry with me what I know I will need. It says a lot about my life right now. That is, not being dependent on anyone, not having to ask for anything. I make all the choices myself. It might seem to be a way of being better than others, I know that. I treat people the way I feel like treating them. I say what I want to say, I am honest and straight-forward. I don’t hide anything. If you are yourself, you have nothing to hide. Be yourself, show your true colours. I don’t want anyone to matter to me. I have never been and I am not a victim. No one steps on me. I have never planned to conform to some damn power structures.   The situation repeats itself. I’m doing it again. It might be the restlestness which makes it hard to stay away from it. The silence in the apartment. There’s so much time to spare. Which forces me to look for something, try to find something in all the ordinariness. I don’t really know what it is that I want to find. Who I want to find, or what. Usually you don’t see other’s happiness, you don’t think about it. But sometimes it becomes so obvious. It’s so damn obvious. I can see it, I can’t help feeling it and get jealous. When you fall in love you get away from all your previous failures, how I used to be, I get a chance to start over and be honest. Not until then can I be truly myself. This is the presence I see in them, everything is forgiven. They don’t carry around all those old stories and failures. They’re being honest. The woman across the street has walked around in the apartment. She seems to be looking for something. He’s been away for quite some time now, left her alone. <<