Through the peephole, I spy on lives that are not my own.

It is not a unique act. Many are would-be voyeurs, but they fear being caught. Add a place for them on the right side of a one-way mirror, and people will look.

I did. An accidental opportunity combined with irresistible, harmless curiosity. What did they say about me? How do they act with no one around? What were their dialects when they spoke as lovers, and what does it look like when they touched as friends?

It became a habit. I savored their secrets like private treasures and imagined I knew them well. It became a type of collection: borrowed memories.

Eventually those stolen recollections outnumbered the ones I made myself. I would rush home to live their lives, my own slipping away in the meantime. That became habitual too.

It's become too late now to do more than watch. I sit here with the world just on the other side of that door, but it doesn't matter. I'm simply eyes, ears, silent analyses and unheard judgments. And I just sit here.