The shutters were wooden panels hinged to the outside of the window frame. You swung them closed at night and the room went dark. You swung them open in the morning and the light came in. The shutters were the apartment's eyelids. The building slept when the shutters closed and woke when they opened. You could read the building's mood from the street. Shutters open meant somebody was home and awake. Shutters closed meant somebody was sleeping or gone or did not want to talk.

The shutters had louvers. Angled slats that let the air through when the shutters were closed. You closed the shutters and the room was dark but the breeze came through and the louvers threw stripes of light across the floor. Zebra light. The shutters gave you privacy without taking your air. The shutters understood that you could want to hide and still need to breathe. The curtain does the same thing but the curtain does not let you breathe.

The shutters banged in the wind. A storm and every building on the block was banging. The shutters against the brick. The hinges screaming. The wind finding every shutter that was not latched and punishing it. The banging shutters were the storm's applause. You lay in bed and counted the bangs and every bang was a neighbor who forgot to latch. The neighborhood kept score of who latched and who did not and the storm was the test.

You painted the shutters. Green or black or blue depending on the decade and the neighborhood. A row of houses with matching shutters was a neighborhood that agreed on something. Green shutters on a brownstone. Black shutters on red brick. The color of the shutters was the building's signature. You painted them every spring and the paint peeled every winter and you painted them again. The shutters and the weather had an agreement. The weather destroyed and you rebuilt and neither of you quit.

The shutters are decorative now. Vinyl panels screwed flat to the wall. They do not open. They do not close. They do not bang in the wind. They are shutters the way a photograph of food is dinner. The shape is right and the purpose is gone. The real shutters worked for you. The vinyl shutters work for the realtor. The building used to have eyelids. Now the building has makeup.

See also: Window Shade, Window Guard