My Neighbour

They come to see him nearly every day now, the emergency services. He’s my neighbour, and he doesn’t open the door. So they stand outside and knock and scream. I suppose they’re afraid he’s gonna die. They tell him to open the door, but he pretends he can’t hear them. I know. He’s told me. He’s told me how his son sends them over. His son the mayor, who knows everybody. Afraid of loosing his father now. To some random fall against the cooker, a sudden slip on the bathroom floor. And then the thought of him lying there for days without anyone knowing. It’s a thought too far for the mayor. So he sends them over, and I can tell they’re tired of it as well. Tired of expecting to find him dead. I think they sympathize. Why shouldn’t an old man be allowed to be alone?

At night when they’re gone I can hear him shuffling around. He pulls his slippers across the floor like metal chains. Constantly back and forth. He irritates me then, while I’m trying to work. Old people up at night, and in the early morn, what is it with them? He seems to want to suck the most out of his remaining time. So he walks back and forth. Ah, I sympathize as well, but he’s a stubborn man, and stubbornness has a way of getting to me, no matter how.

Like my own stubbornness. I haven’t really left the house in a week. Maybe that’s why he irritates me? It might as well be me they come to check on. But they don’t. The editor of the Kavli Post is left alone. It goes with the territory. Once I started writing, years and years ago, I came to expect the loneliness, and miss it when I was around people. My own loneliness is something I can handle well. But that of others? No. I hate it. And that’s why he gets to me, my neighbour. I start to worry as well. I know he’s not working on a novel in there, I know that much. So what is he doing? He must be feeling strange. So restless at night, and quiet during the day. When I hear him I get so terribly sad. I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I wish he would just give up. But I know he won’t.