Observation

There is a distinct grinding noise coming from outside the window nearest my desk. Like I am in the dentist’s chair, drill-in-mouth. I survey the situation by peering overtop the tallest of my cubicle walls, standing on my tippy-toes. Two men, standing on a narrow platform, sand away the concrete exterior of my building. Their platform hangs by a series of bright-yellow ropes that appear, based on my rudimentary knowledge of physics, to be alarmingly thin. A small cloud of concrete dust billows around them, leaving an off-white skin on the window. This, no doubt, will necessitate another feat of exterior high-rise maintenance by the Window Washers, the Concrete Grinders’ more civilized and precise brethren. The Felix to their Oscar, if you will.

Did I mention that they’re eight stories off the ground? Well they are. Eight stories.

Suddenly I remember the two small cavities in my mouth that I must have filled.