Tuning in on the 14th floor

The city does not sleep, but at 6:15 in the morning, certainly yawns. Elena was standing in front of the coffee maker, mentally counting the seconds that took the dark liquid to fill her white ceramic cup, the only one that allowed her upper shelf. In his world, time was not a suggestion, but a steel structure. If the coffee took more than forty seconds, the rest of the day felt like a building with badly calculated foundations. He lived on the 14th floor of an apartment complex that promised "exclusivity and silence", a cruel irony considering that, just below his window, the main artery of the city roared with the constant passage of taxis and buses. However, that study was his refuge. Gray pearl walls, straight line furniture and an almost total absence of personal memories. Elena preferred empty space; The vacuum does not disappoint you, nor leave dirty dishes, or leave without saying goodbye. He approached the large window that occupied almost the entire north wall. The crystal was the only thing that separated it from the urban abyss. On the other side of the narrow alley, no more than fifteen meters away, the twin building was raised, a brick mole seen much older and neglected. His eyes, trained to detect asymmetries, toured the front facade until he stopped in the parallel to his. It was dark. As always. Elena gave a sip to her bitter coffee and adjusted her dark blue jacket suit. His reflection in the glass returned the image of a woman who seemed to have everything under control: the hair picked up in a perfect bun, nor a trail of sleep in the dark circles and a icy determination in the gaze. It was the architect Star of Vanguard Studio, and today presented the plans for the remodeling of the cultural center. There was no room for error. He went down to the lobby and immersed himself into the human stream. The subway station was an anthill of dark coats and tired faces. Elena was placed the headphones with noise cancellation, activating her insulation bubble. The sound of Bach's violin flooded his ears, silencing the screech of the train brakes and the strident voices of newspaper sellers. In the car, surrounded by strangers, he felt strangely comfortable. The city had that way of granting anonymity; You could be a centimeters from another person and being, at the same time, a separate universe. Upon arriving at the office, the atmosphere was loaded with an electrical tension. His boss, the Renowned Architect Marcus Vane, was already in the meeting room. -Blong three minutes before, Elena. I like it, "he said without looking up his tablet. -The punctuality is the courtesy of the kings, Marcus, "she replied, connecting her laptop to the giant screen. The presentation was impeccable. Elena spoke of light flows, sustainable materials and how space had to dictate human behavior. But, in the middle of his exhibition, something failed. It was not the software, nor his voice. It was a flash of light outside the office, a reflection of the sun on an advertising poster that made her think, for a second, in the dark window of her neighbor. He was silent two more seconds. A bump in its perfect structure. -¿Elena? Marcus asked, raising an eyebrow. -Disculpa. As he said, the transition between the outside and the interior must be organic, "he continued, recomposed instantly. But doubt was already there, a small crack in the concrete. The rest of the day was a whirlwind of emails and contractors calls. By the time he left the office, the sun had already hidden and the city had been transformed into a board of neon lights and elongated shadows. It was exhausted. The weight of perfection is often more difficult to load than failure. He decided to walk back. He needed to feel the cold air hitting his face to clear the mental haze. He went ahead of a small disc store he used to ignore. From the open door, a melody of saxophone escaped, something messy, full of improvisation and broken notes. Jazz. Elena detested jazz; It seemed music without plans, a construction without rules. He came to his building at nine o'clock at night. The elevator rose with an almost imperceptible buzz. Upon entering his apartment, he did not turn on the main light. He dropped on the couch, letting the gloom envelop her. Only then did he look out. The window opposite, for the first time in weeks, was illuminated. It was not a white and cold light like his, but a yellowish warmth, almost orange. He was able to distinguish silhouettes of piled up books, musical instruments hanging from the walls and a tangle of cables that crossed the roof. And then, he saw it. A man was on his back, with big headphones on his head, moving to the rhythm of a music that she could not hear. It was not an elegant dance; They were spasmodic movements, full of electricity. Suddenly, the man stopped, approached the crystal and, for a moment, Elena thought she had seen her. He cringed on the couch, feeling like an intruder. But he did not look out to observe anyone. He simply stayed there, resting his forehead against the glass, as if he looking for something in the immensity of the urban night. Elena, driven by a curiosity that he did not recognize as his own, got up and approached his desk. He searched between his drawing materials and found a taco of adhesive notes of fluorescent yellow color. With a black marker, he wrote a single word in large and clear letters: "Noise?" He hit the note on the glass, at the height of his eyes. On the other side, man seemed to notice the movement. He straightened, narrowed his eyes and stuck more to the glass to read. Elena held her breath. He saw how he released a sound laugh, although the sound was lost in the emptiness of the alley. He disappeared from sight for a second and returned with a notebook and a thick marker. He wrote something quickly and hit him against his window. Elena had to force the view to read the disordered calligraph: "tuning." Under the word, he had drawn a small musical note and an arrow pointing down. Confused, Elena looked down. On the sidewalk below, a street musician who had not noticed before began playing the same Saxophon himself who had heard in front of the record store. The city, who had always seemed a meaningless chaos, suddenly had a coordinated soundtrack. Elena stayed there, looking at the yellow note in her window and the white note in that of the stranger. For the first time in years, he did not feel the need to plan the next minute. The morning coffee was still cold in the kitchen, but the air on the 14th floor felt, finally, a little less heavy.