I am jarred awake, torn from the peaceful fog of slumber, by the sound of the back door slamming. Heavy boots pound up the stairs sounding like a petulant toddler stomping. Over my head boots drop to the floor in a way that sounds as if their owner had held them high over head before letting them succumb to gravity. Scenarios play through my mind. In one neighbor grins sadistically as he does this chuckling like Bond Villain. In another he watches like a simpleton, a strand of drool sliding from his dopey grin, as the shoe falls, marveling at the miracle that is gravity. Does he do that? I wonder, hold them up high and drop them? Why?
Now footsteps, not steps, stomps, hammer overhead back and forth back and forth. Who does that? walks back and forth through their apartment over and over again. We have been plagued with ants again this summer. My more generous self speculates that he might be exterminating the little pests, one sorry ant at a time. But again this is something small children do, not grown adults with tattoos and chest hair and girlfriends who screech like banshees during sex. Thankfully it sounds as though the banshee has not accompanied him home this evening. Maybe this is the cause for the petulance.
I have already complained, both to my neighbors and when that failed, to the landlord. To their credit, the neighbors no longer have late night parties, they no longer play loud music into the wee hours of the morning; music that drowns out, to them, the cries of "Bro open the door" that emanate from somewhere in the back patio. I am grateful for that, I really am and now I wonder am I asking too much of them? Am I being unrealistic to expect that someone simply walk up the stairs, that they close the door rather than slam it? I also remember than in my youth I was not always the quietest most ideal neighbor. A simpler interpretation of Karma might say I have it coming, to lie awake every night at bar time pondering the ethics of neighborliness.
Sometimes I plot revenge. Depending on my mood it can range from whimsical pranks to homicidal conspiracy. I decide against homicide figuring I might want to save that for a situation more worthy. The mind wanders down dark paths in the sleepless middle of the night. As I finally drift off to sleep I send silent prayers to the gods of ants hoping they will venture upstairs and invade his breakfast.
© 2010-2013 Nanakoosa’s Place, authored by Jennifer Hazard
love!!!!!
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