Vulgar Reverie < Limited >

By week two, he had a roster. 4B was Denise. She fake-laughed on the phone with her mother, then spent hours searching “how to know if you’re depressed” on a glowing laptop. 2A was the retired cop who drank gin from a coffee mug and talked to his dead wife’s urn. 1C was the newlywed who only stopped screaming at his wife when he started crying, and only stopped crying when he started screaming again.

She smiled. Not a sad smile. Not a fake one.

He had forgotten to watch himself.

A smile that said: I do it too. I watch you watch me.

That was the worst part of the vulgar reverie. vulgar reverie

That’s when he saw her: the woman in 4B, eating cold lo mein from a carton while crying in the dark. She wasn’t beautiful. She was real—nose running, chin glistening, chewing with her mouth open because no one was there to care. Marco felt something he hadn’t felt in years: a dirty, electric recognition .

It started innocently. His apartment in the crooked part of the city faced a courtyard where seven other units pressed together like rotten teeth. He bought a cheap telescope for stargazing—a gift from an ex who said he lacked wonder. But the sky was always smeared with city light, so one night, he aimed lower. By week two, he had a roster

Marco watched them pick their noses, pick their scabs, pick their fights. He watched a man in 3D clip his toenails on the kitchen counter. He watched a teenager in 5F practice smiling in the mirror for forty-five minutes—each smile more terrified than the last.