Our Neighbors, Our Own
by Katherine Gleason [Editor’s Note: This piece is part of the “Topical” series, with each piece solely submitted to and chosen by the Final Reader Pietra Dunmore.] Story
I am returning this box of chocolates. I don’t want your chocolates. What I want is my time, my sleep. So, you and your friends, you keep it down. You spend six-hundred-some-thousand dollars on an apartment you think you’d have some manners, a sense of etiquette, or at least you’d bother to read the house rules. You know we do have house rules. We spent a long time-that would be Carrie and I-writing those rules. They’re a real thing, rules. They apply to everyone to protect us all. Oh, sure, it was like the Wild West out here when we moved in. The group of us, bought the building from the city for a dollar, then we put in the work. This place, your apartment, had no floor. You’ve probably heard the building history. I’m sure your “team” dug up all the dirt. This was Carrie’s home. That floor, the one your contractor ripped out, we put that in, plank by plank. She was painter. All she’d do was paint, days on end. Okay, maybe there were some amphetamines involved. Yeah, we made the rules but it’s not like we were nuns. But seriously why do you have to scream? The “woo hoo” and “aaaahhhhh,” noises you’d make at a sports event or if you were being murdered. We used to party, sure, but we didn’t scream. No, I don’t remember screaming. Sometimes I wish I could’ve screamed, but it’s not like making a lot of noise would’ve helped. Down the street Bryce, the handsome guy who sits out in his wheelchair on sunny…