[15: looking out the window, s/he saw]

Drab, drab, drab and more drab. 

The window didn’t actually look out on much, just down into the alley where the dumpsters stood in the middle of trash that slipped out of bags, no single piece worth dealing with, yet as a whole, making the whole alleyway seem shabby and poorly taken care of. The building across the alley didn’t even have windows facing her, just the blank face of  boring siding, beige on drab, or maybe drab on beige. She craned her neck, trying to see if she could actually see the sky from the window, but without actually opening it, it wasn’t going to happen.

It always amazed her, visiting her mother here, that the insides and outsides of buildings could mismatch so badly. Blank-faced office buildings with rich interiors and expensive furnishings. Elegant old brownstone apartment buildings that were rat-infested, cockroach-harboring and smelled of stale smoke. Or this one, looking like a plantation house and plunked down in the middle of the city, promising a yard at least, if not a proper porch, but in reality, it had a few hundred square feet of shabby lawn butting up against an alley full of blowing trash, and the interior had been chopped into so many pieces that once you twisted your way up the narrow stairs to the second floor, you barely had room to turn around once you got inside.

At least her mother was still working, even if it was supposed to be the last week before she retired. The apartment felt crowded with two people in it, and doubly so with bits of cloth draped over every surface and covered in items picked up at craft fairs for the last forty years, all in predictable shades of pale blue, dusty rose and grey, covered in cute phrases about ducks, geese, cows, and pleasantries about a country life that probably never existed.

The light went strange, and she looked about the dim apartment, confused, and realized that even hidden by the other buildings, the sky had taken on a green cast. Eerily silent, though she heard distant wind. The traffic noise seemed suspiciously muffled.

Without any warning, there was a thunderous racket from the wall where the window looked out on the alley. She could see hailstones hitting the building across the street, bouncing like rubber balls, only leaving dents in the siding, and even one deep gash.

The window broke as a hailstone bounced through it, landing in the sink with a clatter of broken glass and startled dishes. It was as  big as her fist, and it wasn’t alone. Dozens more, none as big clattered in around it. She shivered and grabbed a towel to cover the window, though there was nothing solid enough to hang it on.