Vulgar | Reverie Exclusive

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.

That was the worst part of the vulgar reverie.

Marco’s throat closed. He lowered the telescope. For the first time, he looked at his own reflection in the dark window of his apartment. He hadn’t shaved in days. His shirt had a coffee stain shaped like a lung. His own eyes were hollow and wet. vulgar reverie

The vulgar reverie had begun.

Marco hadn’t slept in three days. Not because of insomnia, but because he had discovered a new kind of hunger: the low, humming thrill of watching other people’s lives crumble through their own bathroom windows. Marco watched them pick their noses, pick their

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.

He had forgotten to watch himself.

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