Reflections of a Window Washer

***Reflections of a Window Washer*** is a short story by Lupe Fiasco that remains incomplete. One of the chapters first appeared in the print edition of *BLAG*, a publishing company based in London, in their Vol. 2, No. 8 issue in 2007. The magazine published the text in its entirety online in March 2022.

## Background

Fiasco told *Entertainment Weekly* back in 2007 that he was writing a book. He shared, "It's tentatively titled *Reflections of a Window-Washer*. It's about this character who has limited amount of conversation with the world. But he has simulated conversations, as if he had ever went past saying to someone, 'Hi.' It's a real cerebral kind of piece. I've got maybe just a few chapters. They published one of the chapterettes in a magazine in London, where [the character] sits and ponders the notion, the physics, the ideals, the commercialization of the future."

According to *HipHopWired* in 2009, he divulged, "I'm not finished. I'm probably on Chapter 3. I'm starting to get lazy so I'm like I'm going to become a short story writer and leave it at four chapters. I've been writing it for about five years now." He continued, "I always thought that it was interesting and kind of like an underrated job. It's very dangerous, like people die every year from window washing. It's very competitive. I think it's taking something as mundane and odd as being a window washer and then, he's so profound, because it's an introspection, he breaks down everything to its most minor part. It's very interesting, I like it. It's a New York best-seller."

## Excerpt

"The future is here!" blares from the animated billboard affixed to the side of an adjacent office building. A building much older in design and construction due to its brick façade, which is an ideal surface for the mounting of such an advertisement.

The "future" alluded to by the casually dressed spieler is a highly sophisticated, easy-to-use hand-held computer. You can do everything with it. From video conferencing to surfing the web to starting your automobile.

"It's the fastest handheld CPU on the market," he reiterates the many attributes of the device which I assume are supposed to justify its exorbitant price tag.

The future. The realm of the yet unhappened. Depending on your vantage it comes to fruition every few seconds with minute alterations of the environment here and there, if you are more adept at micromanagement or it arrives in the form of a prolonged instant accompanied by advances in the technologies of society as a whole, more of a macro observation. (Describing the latter I say "prolonged" because it is a gradual becoming and I use "instant" because at one moment unspecific you look around and acknowledge, "Hey! this is the future." A confounding statement. "We are presently abiding in the future." It inspires consternation indeed.) I flip between the two, micro and macro. I don't believe a constant orientation towards one is prerequisite to progress. I take frequent furloughs to the Yet Unhappened.

I "experience" the world inevitable every time I plan my day. Trying to foresee obstacles and happenings then adequately prepare for them in the at present past. Well the present would be the past if you have presently ventured into the future, correct? The computer salesman's announcement of "The future is here!" elicits me to reevaluate my understanding of the mechanics of time relating to the onset of the "future." Is the future waiting to happen? Is it happening and capable of being visited and manipulated in real-time, and moreover can items from the future be brought back to the present? Are we heading towards it, or is it heading towards us?

"Hey it's 4 o'clock!" My brother-in- arms informs me from the opposite side of the scaffold interrupting my train of thought.

"Let's go!"

## References

1. ↑ "Reflections of a Window Washer". *Blag*. March 29, 2022.
2. ↑ Vozick-Levinson (November 16, 2007). "Lupe Fiasco deciphers his upcoming concept CD". *Entertainment Weekly*.
3. ↑ "Lupe Fiasco Finds Error on Wikipedia; New Novel". *HipHopWired*. November 17, 2009.