Window light

12 October 2026

From the kitchen I can see forty-one windows across the courtyard. I know the number because I counted them one night in spring and have kept counting since, the way other people check the weather.

On an ordinary weeknight, by half past one, four or five are still lit. One is always the same: top floor, left side, a lamp with a yellow shade that I have decided belongs to someone who reads. I have no evidence for this. It is simply a better story than a forgotten switch.

The count goes up before holidays and after football. It goes down sharply in the first cold week of autumn, as if the whole building has agreed to go to bed early and say nothing about it.

Tonight there are six. I find that oddly companionable. None of us will ever mention it, and by morning the windows will just be windows again, but for now there is a small, unannounced committee of people who are also not asleep, and I am on it.