Sighing with both relief and weariness, Julius flipped on the sleek, black television. The TV was the nicest thing in all of apartment 303. The bare necessities satisfied Julius, but he spent a lot of time in front of a screen, so he reasoned he should spend time in front of a nice one. A photograph, roughly the size of a post-it, of a light, brown haired woman in her late twenties with sharp, grey eyes appeared on the foreground of some Middle Eastern background; the news crawl informing anyone who knew Arabic about the woman. Julius didn't know Arabic, but he knew the woman, Penelope.
Seeing the photograph reminded Julius of a line Penelope used to recite, "It is not your fate to fall at my hands," he put his face in his hands as the line ran through his head. "It seems that the opposite has befallen on me," thought Julius as he removed his head from his hands to change the channel.
The sun had started to cast a glare on the screen. When searching for a place to live, he required west facing windows, and only room 303 had such windows. Julius preferred sunsets, the calmness to the day ending, rather than the harsh, bright beginning of the day. He also enjoyed the way the sunset would turn the city's hills into rolling sand dunes, taking him to another place and time.
He couldn't sit still any longer. The line was on a loop in his head. He needed to hear someone talk, as he checked the time, Julius made his way to the Church that was right around the block.
Julius entered through the side door. He didn't want to bother anyone by coming through the main doors, the service had begun five minutes ago. As he walked through the mud room, his foot struck what seemed to be a pile of rags.
"Watch it!" The rags grumbled.
"Sorry," mumbled Julius. He dropped a few coins into the copper bowl sitting next to the rags as another apology.
"True, it is not your fate to fall at my hands," shouted the rags.
Julius froze. "Damn that line, will it never leave me. I don't even know where it's from..." he whispered. As Julius walked out the door and into the service he heard, "Oedipus Rex."
