Clement Street

Saturday Amy woke up without an alarm and lay there for a while.

The ceiling had a crack that started near the light fixture and went toward the window in a line that wasn’t quite straight. She’d noticed it the first week and had been tracking it since, not because she was worried about the building but because it was there and she was awake and her eyes had to go somewhere. It hadn’t moved. Or it had moved and she couldn’t tell. Either way.

She got up. The apartment in the morning was different from the apartment at night. The kitchen window caught the light at an angle that made the airshaft almost tolerable, and the tree she couldn’t identify had a bird in it, something small and brown that wasn’t doing anything. She stood at the counter in a t-shirt and underwear and watched the bird do nothing until the kettle clicked.