I saw two naked people through the windows.
It was early November, but the river bank of the city was still a good track for lazy runners who don’t know exactly in what manner their night run is going to maximize the benifits to their souls. I was among one of them who took this opportunity to satisfy my daily demand of self-achievement, and along with the water ran I.
To science illiterates, the flow of water is a contingent fact. I have never realized river eventually goes to a container until one day, when the sun was clear, I could see very far. The container for Rhine has a long way to go, but every drop of water goes with the flow, and neither of them feel they are the reason for the power of the vehicle. All of them thought they were merely passengers. How wrong can one be, when everyone else is wrong at the same time? It must’ve felt secure to be wrong. But at the same time, it depends on whether being right at the circumstance is polite.
Imagine I were a drop of water in an overly developed society, I would’ve been very careful for my epiphanies. Would people think I am barbarious if I take a rest on a stone and think for a while, without making eye contacts to every acquaintance? Would I be abandoned by modernity? I cannot imagine the horror. If I could choose, I would’ve rather been a bridge at such a place. Immobility goes hand in hand with civilization. And bridges can still smirk under the guise of their stony faces.
Until I saw two naked people in the light of their spacious condo. The lights were very dim, if I recall correctly, because their bodies were breathtaking, bathed in that raspy color. But they nonetheless stood out perfectly, because their neighbors either put down the shutter or didn’t switch on the lights at all. Night time is supposed to be reserved for reflection for successful people with torching humility. The more they spend time with themselves, the more they look like innocuous people who happen to be elites. They wish they were less smart, but their hands are tied.
The naked people were naked gratuitously. They window looked at the river bank, and eyesights went both ways. There was an undirected edge between the window and my spot, which had been a graph structure I had just learned from mathmatics that afternoon. The nakedness was thrown onto me, because I didn’t even try to peak through any barriers. There were none. I looked up and they were just there, like two angels exchange banters, and they didn’t bother to take on the wings on the tenderhooks. Too much dust, they thought. They’d flown to Japan once, and had learned their etiquette.
They stood face to face, but with a farely long distance. They showed themselves from two windows, and as it was a big condo, they were unnaturally away from each other. The windows were large too, allowing for a good fat surface to receive my eye contact. From afar, I could still recognize they were a woman and a man, and their bodies were angelic. The man was at the east and the woman west, and I knew it because she was at the upper flow of the river. Her breasts were bulbous, dropping downwards due to the same reason water falling down the east. They were talking, but their manners looked like they were right next to each other, which I imagined was the benefit of the reverberation of the empty room.
The man was painting the woman, but that I had to infer from his movement below the window sill. His arms made a commuting movement without a steady rhythm, which led me into guessing that it was a drawing process. He looked up very often to exchange words with the woman, and she wore an serene facial expression with sporatic laughters. I didn’t understand why he was naked too. And since his body was as perfect as hers, and if he had to be naked, why didn’t she paint him at the same time? It would’ve been a more economical allocation of the beauty resource.
It was not necessary that they let us see, but I appreciated it. The water, I assume, appreciated it too. Each drop of the river had a time range of flowing through the eyesight of those two windows, and I bet they’d look back when time and space had passed. The two bodies were among the most well-built ones I had ever had the chance to stare. I hoped they let the curtain open only because they were proud. I hoped they thought they were Roman Gods. I hoped they fell in love with the image of themselves like Narcissus. They deserved that. And the fact that they let me see made me respect them in a holy way.
Or they could be angels, like my previous hypothesis. They let me see as a way of revering their designer, and he painted her because they wanted to analyse the craft.
Were there some drops of water, stopped on a piece of stone below the window, and rested there, for some entertainment? Did they refuse to change the formality of pronouns when they asked their neighbors to pass them onto the shore? Have they decided to ditch the civilized politeness in exchange for a heroic action which, rumor has it, did harm to one’s soul?
I stood by and watched, until I left.