Meeting the Neighbors

Flash Nonfiction

I close my door just as they’re coming out of theirs at the end of the hall and check to ensure it’s locked. Mine is not. I live dangerously. I’m closer to the elevator bank and hit the down button while they mosey on over. Which takes enough time that it feels awkward. Three years and change I’ve been in this place and I’ve never lain eyes on the people who inhabit 1212. I don’t know many of my neighbors. Met one across the hall when I knocked on her door after her Chicago Tribunes had piled up for a few days and I was worried, and she told me she’d just gotten back from out of town. We’re not tight by any means but she will be the door I go to if ever I need the Heimlich or in case of another emergency.

We shake hands while we wait for the elevator. Ling and Daryl. They touch on how awkward it is that we have not yet met despite our respective building tenures (“Can you believe it?” “Oh, you do exist!”). Then we board and Ling gets into it.

“You work remote?”

“I do, most of the time.”

“I hear you in there talking so much.”

Unsurprising, as my apartment is the one next to the trash room. I clock what she says but it registers as, “I can hear you watching porn in there, you filthy boy.”

I say, “Yeah, just on calls all day” and hope she has never heard any of the deeply weird shit I talk about with people when I have them on speaker phone though she almost certainly has.

“Rain sounds. You love your rain sounds.”

“Ha. I do. They help me concentrate.”

In my mind: “You are so alone and somewhat strange and the two are likely connected.”

“Sometimes there is thunder.”

In my mind: “We all have ups and downs.”

“Indeed there is.”

“Have a good day.”

“You too.”