About the work

She came to the communal kitchen at the same time every day, not for company, but for the light. Her apartment was too dim, the window facing a wall. Here, the sun baked the plaster, and she would stand, watching the pigeon outside, its head cocked, listening to the street sounds. That bird, she knew, understood the difference between a falling leaf and a thrown stone. It knew the rhythms of the building as well as she did. There was something in its stillness that mirrored her own, a quiet persistence, a waiting for something that never quite arrived.