Sunsets & Herbs

The other morning, I woke up early thinking it was a normal workday.

Later on, I realised it was Workers’ Day. I think what happened is that I had spent so much time lately postponing things, telling myself “I will start properly tomorrow,” that when I finally woke up feeling ready to get my life together again, I did not even realise the rest of the world was resting.

That morning felt like one of those “okay, enough now” mornings. The kind where you wake up determined to return to yourself a little. To wake up early again. To move your body again. To stop rotting in bed and endlessly postponing things you know make you feel better.

So, I got onto my walking pad like I usually do whenever I am trying to rebuild some sense of routine in my life.

My walking pad faces a large window overlooking the road outside and every morning before I start walking, I pull the curtains all the way aside and open the window wide. I like letting the morning air in while I walk. Something about the cold breeze makes me feel a little more awake and connected to the day before it fully begins.

It is not a busy road, just one of those neighbourhood roads that eventually lead to the main road. Most mornings are quiet. Sometimes you see people jogging, sometimes people rushing to work with that early-morning seriousness on their faces, already carrying the weight of the day before it has even properly begun. Sometimes you see couples walking home from a night out, still wrapped around each other like the world only belongs to the two of them. And sometimes there is nothing at all.

That morning felt unusually still.

I remember seeing groups of people running past in what looked like a marathon, which immediately caught my attention because there were so many of them. Usually, you will see quite a few people jogging in the morning, but nothing like what I saw that day. They just kept coming one after the other, filling up the quiet road with movement.

And I remember thinking to myself, “Wait… aren’t you guys supposed to be going to work?”

That was the moment it started feeling strange to me because, in my mind, it was just a normal weekday morning. People were supposed to be rushing to taxis, sitting in traffic, carrying coffee cups, looking stressed about the day ahead. Instead, there were people running freely through the neighbourhood like the morning belonged to them.

About fifteen minutes into my walk, I saw a woman who looked like she was probably in her fifties passing by.

She wore a bright yellow dress and she was smoking. I remember that detail clearly for some reason. The bright yellow dress against the soft morning light. She was barefoot too, which immediately caught my attention, although at the time I did not think much of it. I just remember briefly wondering where she was going that early.

Then she disappeared.

A few minutes later, I started hearing shouting outside.

The morning had been so quiet that the sound caught my attention immediately. At first, I could not really make out what was being said. It just sounded like somebody shouting somewhere further down the road.

But then she appeared again. This time she stood in the middle of the road, directly across from my window.

Then suddenly, she screamed. The kind of scream that does not just reach your ears, but your body too.

I felt my entire body tense up. I remember holding onto myself tightly while watching her. I could feel my body reacting to the fear and pain in her voice before I even understood what was going on.

Then, almost suddenly, she pulled the dress over her head and threw it onto the ground. And there she was, completely naked in the middle of the road. I remember just freezing for a second in disbelief while my legs kept moving on the walking pad. It was like my body had not yet caught up to what I was seeing.

And that was when the screaming became louder.

She kept crying out one name over and over again.

“Victor.”

Then more words in a language I did not understand.

Then “Victor” again.

She threw herself onto the ground over and over again, as if her body could no longer hold the weight of whatever she was feeling. At one point she lay on the tar road completely naked, screaming toward a person who was not there.

And all I could think was: “Victor, what did you do?”

I did not know whether Victor had died, abandoned her, hurt her, disappeared, or betrayed her. I had no idea what had happened.

Across from my apartment there is a children’s home with security guards outside. I remember looking toward them expecting someone to move toward her, to cover her, to comfort her, to do something.

But nobody moved.

Watching her from my window, I kept thinking about how different moments like this probably would have looked years ago. One thing I know for sure is that I could not have been the only person witnessing what was happening. The screaming alone would have pulled people toward their windows the same way it pulled me toward mine. I am sure there were people watching from nearby apartments, behind curtains, from balconies, from inside parked cars.

But nobody really came out. Even me.

And maybe that is what unsettled me too. I kept thinking about how, years ago, moments like this probably would have pulled entire neighbourhoods out of their homes. Somebody would have run toward her. Somebody would have covered her body. Somebody would have tried to calm her down. But now we mostly witness each other’s suffering from a distance. Through windows. Through gates. Through screens. Watching, but unsure how to step in anymore.

The helplessness of standing there watching another human being unravel in front of you while not knowing what the right thing to do is.

At some point two women running in the marathon passed by. The moment the older woman saw them, she started screaming again and ran toward them. One of the runners jumped in shock and fear before quickly moving away from her.

I remember feeling guilty for everybody in that moment.

Guilty for the runners who did not know what they had just walked into. Guilty for the woman screaming in the street. Guilty for myself standing safely behind glass, watching everything happen while doing absolutely nothing.

Eventually she made her way toward the main road where there were more cars, more people, more eyes watching. I do not know what happened after that. I do not know whether somebody helped her. I do not know who Victor was. I do not know whether she ever made it home safely.

But the whole thing stayed with me for days.

I remember calling a friend later that day to tell her what I had witnessed, and halfway through explaining it I suddenly started crying. The kind that catches you off guard because you did not even realise your body was still carrying something.

Maybe because it frightened me how quickly a person can unravel in public while the world keeps moving around them. Or maybe because it reminded me how fragile all of us really are.

I do not know.

But even now, as I write this, I still think about her sometimes. About the yellow dress. About the screaming. About the name Victor hanging in the middle of the road long after she disappeared from view.