And across the street a man in a white t-shirt is cooking. Serendipità can’t see the food being prepared, only his moving arms, his elbows in a cutting motion and a grating motion. He seems skilled, practiced. His knuckles are bent. In this kitchen across the street there’s a rotation of strangers, different people occupy the space, a cast of characters. Today it’s this man in the white t-shirt cooking.

Downstairs, on the street and on the sidewalk, there are empty chairs and empty billowing tablecloths. The backs of the chairs are made of a wicker or straw material. Outside, it’s windy. There’s the smell of fresh paint; church bells vibrate.

On the balcony she eats the tepid watermelon. When the construction workers come close to the balcony she pretends to sleep. They admire her buttocks. With one eye open Serendipità notices someone new across the way—a woman. The man in the white t-shirt is gone and a crocheting woman has taken his spot. A shadow of the woman’s hands is moving on the appliances, fastidious hands, knotting and unknotting. The hands are not old or new, they’re just hands, there’s nothing special about them.

Below, the crosswalk signs flash and beep, a countdown to pedestrian safety. But there’s no one outside; at this time people are in church or in their kitchens. Serendipità consumes raw things and sits on her balcony.

The distant bounce of a basketball, a hissing, a kite in the air, all of the sources unknown. Finally, a man walks across the street below her (the mass ended), his eyes closed, his chest exposed and his white chest hair. Above, the sky: pink and blue and purple. On the balcony there’s a plant with small leaves. The sound of construction. There’s exhaustion in the sound, even laziness, and a sense of general melancholy among the construction workers. The closed-eyed man makes it to the other side.

Serendipità goes to grab her wallet, to get the cash. On her way through the apartment, she touches a woman’s lower back; to get through the mass of construction workers she touches a man’s elbow. The bedroom is dark, pitch black, the curtains are drawn but she knows the room well and finds the money easily—in the second dresser drawer, on the right, underneath the third folded cashmere shirt, in a small wooden engraved box. Serendipità distributes the funds. She opens the front door, she closes the heavy door behind the workers, and she curses under her breath, a fuck or a motherfucker.

There doesn’t seem to be progress. There are new holes in the ceiling and in the walls, and a container of off-white paint is left dripping and unsealed.