Bruised purple spills over my window, not black yet. It’s a thick color I can trace my finger through, almost paint with it across the vacant white walls of my living room. I wish I could color these walls. No stars tonight, because they hide from people in the city. We are undeserving of a star’s presence, with the way we treat the sky. I drive a car, I shouldn’t even be able to see clouds. Clouds are much more forgiving than stars, it’s their nature.

The cool glass of the window pane feels good against a warmed forehead, like a cup of fridge-fresh milk. Eyes closed to that eggplant sky outside, I take deep breaths, afraid to glimpse some goblin outside my window, staring in at me. I avoid looking at glass at night, for fear of seeing some unknown observer, ready to come inside to do more than watch.

A light glimmers against a mirror somewhere in my memory, but I can’t watch the scene play out without wanting to run away. If the silvery screen would just vanish, I would stop being afraid of these windows.