My window. Picture by Sophie Haigney.
In our Winter subject, we revealed Mieko Kanai’s “Faucet Water,” a narrative whose exceptional first sentence spills throughout greater than two pages and describes the inside of the narrator’s new house as if it had been the structure of her emotional panorama. Who amongst us has not resolved to cease obsessing over some small piece of our house, solely to fail? Impressed by Kanai’s story, we’re launching a sequence referred to as Residence Enhancements, by which writers think about the facets of their houses, gardens, and inside design which have pushed them to distraction.
I moved into an attic room in a tall home final March. It’s a beautiful home on a fairly avenue. The supply of the room appeared to have fallen into my lap at a time once I wanted it badly. It was not too costly, and it was in a redbrick old style neighborhood I’d come to like; it appeared too good to be true, and it might not actually final, as a result of the lease would quickly go up. However in the meanwhile I also have a little balcony with a view of the freeway and of a billboard studying “Kars4Kids.” My room is oddly formed and small however in a manner I like—somebody who as soon as stayed there in contrast it to a ship’s cabin and I believed sure, that’s proper, my little cabin.
There was just one actual downside, which I seen on my second evening sleeping there. The window subsequent to my mattress rattled. At first I believed it was typical freeway noise, simply amplified, however quickly it turned clear that the glass was flapping, wobbling, shaking. The sound it made was a wierd stuttering, often high-pitched, virtually verging on whistling. I requested my roommate to speak to the owner, and the owner failed, for weeks after which months, to look. I took a video of the noise in the midst of one sleepless evening and despatched it to my roommate for validation. He responded, “OMG that’s like a horror movie.” The window didn’t rattle all evening lengthy, and even each single evening—it was intermittent, which made the expertise much more unusual and like a fever dream, as a result of I’d get up at odd instances after which drift again to sleep after which get up once more and within the morning really feel like maybe I used to be exaggerating the issue to myself. Typically for a couple of days I’d assume the rattling had resolved itself, however then it might come again, loud as ever. I used to be not sleeping very a lot or very effectively, however my window wasn’t the one motive for this.
Within the early summer season, I started to speak about my window incessantly, at dinner events and at bars and at my workplace. “My life is superb, besides my window gained’t cease rattling,” I’d say, after which describe the issue in nice element. Somebody I used to be form of relationship supplied to return by with instruments to attempt to repair it, however I wouldn’t let him, as a result of it appeared like too large a gesture. The rattling window outlived the short-lived relationship. It turned my Achilles’ heel, one thing I pinpointed as The Drawback of My Life. Every little thing can be fastened if I might repair my window!
Lastly the owner got here. He changed the window, giving it a brand new body, pure wooden quite than white. There was a plastic protecting over the windowpane, which I peeled off to disclose a spotless sheet of glass. That evening, I slept soundly and awakened ecstatic, in my new life!
Just a few weeks later, the window started to rattle once more. It was softer this time, however it was unmistakably the identical sound. I awakened in the midst of the evening dazed and shocked, fell again to sleep with a pillow over my head, and awakened deflated within the morning. There gave the impression to be no resolution for my downside, and the owner was uninterested within the additional proof of the rattling window. He had completed, he felt, all that he might do. It was laborious to argue with that, since I couldn’t think about what else might be completed.
I contacted a contractor who instructed me to name his “window man” after which I waited two weeks for the window man to return and examine it. On the cellphone he warned me that fixing it was possible going to be costly, however I instructed him I used to be ready to pay. He confirmed up one afternoon in November. He seemed carefully on the window, examined its sides, walked out onto the balcony and pressed on the glass. He studied the fixtures for about three minutes from all angles.
“There is no such thing as a downside with this window,” he mentioned. “There may be nothing flawed with it.”
“However it rattles,” I mentioned. I felt he didn’t imagine me, so I confirmed him the video.
“Perhaps you’ve gotten a ghost,” he recommended, earlier than taking his depart.
About ten days later, the rattling stopped. I waited for it to begin once more, however for longer than common, it didn’t. Perhaps it’s the climate, I recommended to a buddy who had actually grown bored of my window saga, although the climate had not likely modified in a significant manner. Perhaps it’s psychological, he mentioned. Ha ha!
For greater than a month, the rattling has not returned, although I half count on it to at any second. Sadly, regardless of this welcome respite, not all my issues have been fastened.
Sophie Haigney is the online editor at The Paris Overview.
