The rent for my apartment is about half as much as any of the others on my floor. Why? Well, there’s a giant billboard directly across the street.
If not for the double layer of blackout curtains in my bedroom, it would be visible from almost anywhere in the apartment. At least I can sleep this way, but it’s a digital billboard, so light still bleeds around the edges. Which also means it changes regularly- so when I come home from work, the divorce lawyer with pixels for pores has been replaced by a Phantom of the Opera mask the size of a small car. Much better.
I don’t know how long the Phantom lasts; I wind up spending the weekend elsewhere. When I return, my body the patchwork of fatigue and thrill that I’d definitely prefer to the lethargic feeling that usually occupies Sunday nights, I’m greeted as soon as I open the door by a chapstick ad. I don’t know how I feel about this; at that scale you can’t really make lips look good, but someone paid a lot to try. At least it’s not animated, so I don’t need to worry about the flicker at the top of my blackout curtain when, an hour later, I collapse into bed.
The work week brings three changes: Burger King, a union ad, and to my chagrin, an animated stork. When my friends arrive Friday night, all of us a bit sloshed, they can’t stop laughing at its pixelated pomp as it flaps by about once a minute. I laugh along even though it probably cost me half an hour of sleep last night. No cartoon bird is going to ruin my weekend.
We’re still awake at two AM when the stork makes its final pass and the near-solid pink of a Victoria’s Secret ad blinds us briefly. This doesn’t go over well, and within fifteen minutes everyone has gone home. This wasn’t what I was hoping for, and the ad gets a brief glare as I head off to the darkened room I’m now regretting cleaning up. It’s still practically a nightlight in there, but at least it’s not the daytime that’s happening in my living room.
I hadn’t been expecting the night to go this way. He was the first one to suggest it was getting late, the first one out the door. The billboard was just an excuse, I realize as I lay in the insufficient darkness, still in my work-then-club-then-party clothes. I’m not sober enough to follow up, though.
The following evening, after a day of errands, I’m sitting at the island dividing kitchen from living room, staring at the white glow of my phone against the pink backdrop. I gave him time before I asked, but it’s been half an hour now and I’m just pretending to do anything else.
The pink, which I’d been using as free lighting, suddenly vanishes. I lower my phone slowly. Out the window, two white words: NO SIGNAL.
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