The Lives of Others

There is an apartment building in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Sacramento, with dark alleys on either side, and all over these alley walls is graffiti of every kind. One particular tag, if indeed that is what it is, is stranger than the rest. Instead of the gang-related turf war tags, pot leaves, or crude caricatures, this bit of vandalism is a simple door. Painted in white lines, the door consists of a frame, a knob, and a keyhole. If this did not mark it as out of place, then the fact that the door, of all the bits of graffiti, is the first tag on this portion of the wall. All the other tags have been painted on top of others, two, maybe three times in some cases, but this door remains untouched, as though by some unspoken mandate. Even more amazing, while no one watches, the brick door to nowhere swings open, revealing to the alleyway a small apartment that cannot be found on the inside of the building, no matter how hard one might search for it.

This little pocket of reality-defying living space is the humble Hollow of Aristophanes Most-Bright, Summer courtier and self-appointed patrolman of the Hedge. Today the Bright One is setting out, as he does most every day, to spy on the life that was once his. He gets on a bus, takes it uptown to a neighborhood much nicer than the one he lives in now, and heads into a different apartment building. He goes up five floors, finds the window that he has looked out of almost every day for half a year, and takes out a pair of binoculars. If anyone notices anything weird about the handsome man in the rather ratty suit, they say nothing. If anyone asks him (no one ever has) he tells them he is birdwatching. Everyone assumes he's just one of the weirder tenants in the building, and they ignore him accordingly.

Aristophanes is not birdwatching, however. His binoculars are trained on a window in the complex across the street, one floor down, into an open living room. There is a woman sitting on the couch this morning; she is talking on her cell phone. He knows it is probably a business call. The woman is always taking business calls. She looks happy. She deserves to be -- after all, she worked damn hard to make it here. He knows this all too well.

The man who looks strangely like Aristophanes, but is certainly not Aristophanes is not there today. He takes a strange pride in that fact. That life-stealing son of a bitch has no right to be in his living room, talking to his wife, pretending to be him. Aristophanes is plotting, as he has done ever since he first started spying on his old life, trying to come up with the perfect way to kill the impostor -- that damned Fetch. Aristophanes has the thing's daily schedule practically memorized. It wouldn't be hard to do. He might need some help, yes, but that is what the Freehold was for, that was what his Motley (if he ever found one) was for. Anger roiled inside of Aristophanes as he thought of all he would do to the miserable bastard that took his life. It knew what it was now too, ever since Aristophanes had come a-knocking, not even knowing anything was wrong. The minute it opened that door, it knew that it was a damned lie, and he fully relished rubbing that fact in its face.

Once it was gone, though, he wondered, would he be able to take his life back? Or was the bitterness that seemed to define him going to keep him from ever going home again? The thought was too much to bear. Aristophanes put down the binoculars. It was time to walk back home to his spray painted door.