My roof was mostly replaced today. There is a bit, the only stretch of roof actually visible to me, that remains only partly finished. It seems such a small thing to be left incomplete, like an afterthought or something forgotten rather than work deliberately left until later, but I am not privvy to the minds of these roofers. I could only begin to guess why anything happened the way it did today, and it would all be me grasping at figments of my imagination and incidental observations. I did not speak to them. They did not speak to me. I barely even observed their work, instead measuring their progress in the tromp of feet above me, the grinding hum of an air compressor somewhere out of sight, the staccato five-beat pattern of their nail guns, and the occasional appearance of a worker using my balcony as a staging ground for moving materials from the ground to the roof. This happened twice–my day interrupted by the expected knock at the door and an apologetic smile from a man who probably would have felt more comfortable climbing a ladder to use my balcony rather than being told to move through the apartment building, and I still do not understand why it had to happen this way. I didn’t mind the interruption. It wasn’t like I was doing any deep or focused work, distracted as I was by the constant noise of their activity and the rattle of my apartment building as an unknown number of men walked across my roof. It was just odd, this strange set of circumstances that led to me being home all day and my brief, wordless interactions with this poor, uncomfortable roofer. None of my neighbors interracted with the roofers at all. Only me. And even then, all I did was open a door for the roofer and then lock it behind him once he was finished passing sheets of plywood up to his coworkers. It was as distant a remove as could be possible when your roof is being replaced and your balcony is needed as a halfway point for passing materials up.