dirty

The dirt climbs up the wall in layers of years. Cracks stretch through the plaster under a bubbling scar tissue of paint. The windows set in the wall are paradoxically clean, their transparency marred only by faded paper pasted against the glass to list special offers and the reflection of the facing street, bright in the spring sunlight. Except for the glass you would think that this shop had been closed for years, that the stacks of office furniture on sale inside had been abandoned, like the shuttered pawnbroker's next door.