Jakob longs for the sight through this window. Aches for the moment when Markus will open his cupboard door and free him for a few minutes only. In time the old man lets him linger. Lets him peer upward from beneath the ledge, his hand reaching out as if he might touch the sky. “It is bright today, Markus,” Jakob will say. “So bright.” “It is, my boy,” the old man will confirm. “It is a bright winter’s day.” Sometimes there is snow fringing the four corners of the glass. Other times there is rain, rattling against the pane from a sky of rubbed chrome, but even that merely smears the dirt, never washes it away. “I am afraid to clean it,” Markus tells him. “Afraid to make it stand out.” “It’s of no matter,” Jakob tells him. “No matter. I see all that I need.” It is at night that they suffer cramps and at night when each of them lets the tears come, as if the darkness were a sanctuary for pain.
