He looks through the living room window to the street below. The voice of the owner of the flat reaches him from the kitchen, where a jet-lagged K punctuates with silent, startled nods her intricate explanations on how an old washing machine works. The scene he sees from the window is familiar to him, despite it is actually the first time he’s in that flat, looking through that particular window. Cars speed up towards the next traffic light at the junction where road-wide rows of vehicles get filled without a gap (cars like blocks scrolling down in a Tetris game). Everyday sounds reach his ears. At the far end a department store he visits not all too often silhouettes against the afternoon cloudless sky.
He wonders what that same scene may mean to K, for whom each single bit of the stage below is entirely new. He’s gone through that reflection himself on many occasions, that very first look through a hotel room window, or through a window in a rental flat or in a guest house, after the overture of the journey is actually over - the first leg of the trip itself. The scenery may change from every window but all those first looks manage to trigger some response in him, either against or in favour of the view before him, so far unknown, unseen, never reflected upon. The lack of any previous reference to interpret each new scene (each first impression) brings in the most diverse reactions (melancholy, sadness, excitement, anxiety, anger, happiness, joy) which are likely to be proved wrong and ill-conceived after a more prolonged inspection is due. However, despite the implicit flaw of those early impressions, the first looks from windows over places never visited before can, from the reaction stirred within him, easily top the highlights of his trips.
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