Happy Monday everyone. I hope you had a fantastic weekend. Now let’s shake the dust off of the brains with our morning prompt. Are you ready? Good then let’s go.
I like this. I have no idea why he has to be in this neighborhood right now but I want to find out.
Monday, December 19th: The windows were painted shut.
The windows were painted shut. He tugged at the sash. It still felt locked. He checked the lock. They were open. “Just the paint.’ He thought. He tugged and tugged wondering how the rest of the small apartment could have the paint peeling off in patched that made the walls look like they had some sort of skin disorder yet the thin strip of paint between the window frame and the sash could hold on like it was a steel weld.
The window wasn’t budging. He took out his keys and cursed the fact that his miniature pocket knife was no longer on his keychain. All his life he either had a pocketknife or a knife on his keychain. It served him well and came in useful more times than he could count. Now it was considered a weapon and he had to remove it, often finding himself in situations where one would have come in handy. Signing over the vagaries of life in general he used one of his lesser used keys to scrape along the bottom of the window. The paint parted from the effort of his key and after creating a line along the sill he put his keys away.
He tried the window again. This time he got a little movement. The window was old and didn’t want to move but gradually and with great protest it lifted. Andy stuck his head out of the opening and took a deep breath. The air was not as fresh as he would have liked, but it was a lot better than the scent inside of the apartment. The smell was part over used industrial cleaner and part insecticide. The eight unit apartment building had been doused in both. The oppressive heat cooked the two together to create a noxious eye watering scent that burned its way through his nose and scorched his lungs.
The air outside was filled with the smell of exhaust but there was a breeze and the air was moving. It was a few degrees cooler as well. The City was still suffering under the heat wave but it still beat the inside of the apartment.
After a few deep breaths he turned back to the inside looking around at the lay of the land. The truth was, he knew the lay of the land. The eight unit building had stood empty for more than five years. Occasionally squatters were found inside and chased out. The owner ship of the building was tied up in probate and conflicting claims. Andy wasn’t certain why anyone was fighting for ownership, but having met the two competing owners he knew they were both the type to fight over ownership of a paperclip if one thought the other could turn a profit by it.
‘And here I am buying it so I can’t really say much can I,’ he thought. The one who one the legal battle was selling it to him cheaply because it wasn’t worth much and would require far more in property taxes and renovation that he could make back quickly. None of the flippers in town wanted to touch it.
Which for Andy was a saving grace. He knew construction and had worked nearly every aspect of the trade. Very few people knew that about him and very few people looked past the expensive suits, imported shoes and corporate position to find out. But he needed to be in this area for the time being for reasons he didn’t want to disclose and purchasing this building as a project would give him a legitimate reason for his presence.
Ten til Midnight 