sol.ace_r

He stands by the window every morning at 9:17.
The curtain is drawn halfway,
and the glass is clouded with fingerprints and dust.
The thought I should clean it has disappeared at some point.
Once, he raised his hand and rubbed the glass, then stopped.
The world seen through the clear gap hurt more, strangely enough.
Through a fogged window, the world felt distant—and so, it hurt less.

People call him “the man who looks out the window.”
He lives on the 13th floor. It’s high, but not a particularly good view.
Outside the window are a small playground, an old apartment complex, a park trail, and a long stretch of road.
Delivery trucks turn in every day.
Mothers push strollers carefully across the street.
In the distance, an elementary school can be seen, and sometimes a child who overslept runs past, their backpack bouncing.

Exactly 9:17.
He never set an alarm, yet his body wakes on its own at that time.
Rubbing his eyes, without even drinking water, he stands by the window—as if checking that he is still alive.
In that moment, the world feels far away, and because of that distance, it feels strangely safe.

Sometimes people ask him:
“Why do you look out the window every day?”
“Are you waiting for someone?”
“If you stay alone in a place like this too long, you’ll get depressed.
You should go outside.”

He doesn’t answer.
Not because he has nothing to say, but because he knows it wouldn’t be understood anyway.
Emotions are complex, and language breaks too easily.
Depression is closer to a feeling than a state, and that feeling can’t be contained in a single word.
The moment you put it into speech, it shrinks—or gets misunderstood.
“Oh, something happened, I see.”
“Well, at least it wasn’t that bad.”
Words like that trample over the dark patterns inside the heart.

It wasn’t always like this.
He used to walk down streets, sit in cafés reading books, laugh with friends, ride buses and get off anywhere.
But one day, the world’s sounds grew unbearably loud.
Footsteps, conversations, phone vibrations, advertisements, laughter, music—all of it crashed down on him as one massive noise, suffocating him.
Like waves that never give you time to breathe.

At first, he thought he was just tired.
Maybe it was lack of sleep.
But days passed, then weeks, and he didn’t recover.
His body was fine, but somewhere inside, his mind felt torn.
Sunlight was too bright, so he drew the curtains.
Music felt like it was ripping his ears apart, so he put in earphones.
And eventually, he stopped everything.

He quit his job, turned off his phone, cut contact with people.
The time that stopped inside that room was…
not rotten, but not warm either—like food left too long in the refrigerator.

Standing by the window began purely by chance.
After staying up all night, he absentmindedly pulled the curtain aside,
and morning was already there.
What surprised him was this—nothing had happened.
The world was still running just fine.
People walked the streets, cars passed by, and somewhere far away, a child’s laughter drifted through.

A strange sense of relief washed over him.
Even if I do nothing, the world keeps going.
It was a lonely comfort, and at the same time, a peculiar kind of freedom.
That was when it began—standing in the same place, at the same time, every day.

One day, someone waved from a window in the building across.
She looked like an elementary school girl.
Braided hair, a thin wrist with a pale lavender hair tie.
He froze.
Being seen by someone felt unfamiliar, and oddly frightening.

After that day, the girl began putting stickers on her window.
Every morning, regardless of the weather.
Small clouds, puppies, stars, four-leaf clovers.
One day, there was a sentence written there.

“Spring is visible from here.”

The moment he read it, something inside him stirred quietly.
Spring.
A season too far away for him.
A word that felt distant just by its name—not warmth, but something already passed.
And yet, someone had placed that season beyond the window, without words, without explanation—simply by existing.

After days of hesitation, he wrote a single line on a small Post-it.

“Really?”

From then on, they exchanged words without speaking.
She wrote things like,
“Today it’s cloudy,”
“I drew a rainbow,”
“My mom baked cookies.”
He replied with short sentences:
“That sounds nice,”
“I haven’t seen a rainbow in a long time,”
“It must smell good.”

He didn’t know who she was.
Or where she lived.
But that didn’t matter much.
For the first time, he realized you could be connected without knowing someone’s name.
Communication didn’t require identities.
Sometimes, presence alone was enough.

Now, the reason he stood by the window had changed.
Not to look at the world, but to wait for that small sentence.
The loneliness remained, but he wasn’t completely alone.
A sense of something being connected.
That alone made the days sufficient.

And he understood—
depression isn’t something you erase, but something you make room to breathe.
That space appears in smaller gaps than you’d expect.
For example, beyond a dust-covered window.

One day, the girl’s window was closed.
The next day, and the day after that, too.
The stickers were still there, but no new words appeared.
An uneasy worry crept in.
Did she move away?
Was she sick?
Or did she just… get tired of it?

After a long time of thinking, he placed a single line on his own window.

“I’m still here today.”

And he stood quietly.
Just like before, looking out the window.
Perhaps that sentence wasn’t meant for someone else at all, but a spell he cast for himself each day.

Am I really alive?
Well… I’m still here, at least.

When night deepens, the window becomes a mirror.
In the dark room, he sees his own shadow.
Sometimes trembling with anxiety, sometimes standing without a single thought.
Then, quietly, he asks himself:

“Did I… exist today?”

And slowly, softly, he answers.