Just Looking

by Nick Sweeney

About the Author: Nick Sweeney’s novel Laikonik Express was published by Unthank Books in 2011. Much of his work shows his fascination with Eastern Europe and its people and history. He is a freelance writer and editor, and guitarist with Balkan troubadours the Trans-Siberian March Band. His story Traffic was second-placed in the 2015 V S Pritchett Memorial Prize.

Excerpt

It was too narrow to be a balcony, and insensitive friends had cured Alex of calling it one, but there was room enough to stand and lean on the railing, a drink in his hand. The city’s skyline was visible from the thirteenth floor, and those same friends lapped up the view, but mostly Alex saw other blocks, the windows of others who dwelt up in the sky. What he really liked was standing there listening to the distant growl of traffic, safe in the knowledge that he had left the city behind for the day, and was free of its storm of regulations.

He drained his glass, and stepped back into the room. He walked to the hallway, stared at the bathroom door. “Elena.” He tapped on the frosted window. “Are you going to be long in there?” He called his wife’s name again, and melancholy streaked through him. He remembered calling her name in a different way, not in enquiry, but in what passed for men of his time and place as love, in the days when he hadn’t felt afraid of the passions in his blood. The hissing of water made a secret of his wife’s answer. Alex stood there trying to make it out, but then, like a dog spoken to kindly, found himself comforted, if only fleetingly, by the cadence of words holding some promise. He went back to the living room and sank into an armchair. His hand wandered down to a loose thread along its flank, and he curled it around his finger.

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