My apartment building

The off and on repetitiveness of the noisy mattress lets this side of the building know that some half-ass fucking is going on upstairs. Whether it’s a stamina issue or that he is just tired; you know that the girl is unimpressed. The sounds of the charity store mattress lets the world know that even if he could lace together several thirty second attempts, she is safe from raising a child in nine months.

In-between the mattress noises of the afternoon session, the neighbors to the right haven’t found the ability to do anything quietly. Whether it’s the banging of every kitchen drawer in search of something that has never been found or putting away the dishes from what I can only gather is the last meal for the crew of a long lost Viking ship, it never seems to cease. When they are not banging wooden drawers, the man of the house is yelling to his wife to stop burning whatever she is cooking. The smells in the hallway are undeniably from something that used to live and must have been stored in a burlap bag until it was needed for supper. If the stench of last few days of burnt suppers is not enough, the sounds of the building itself fill the air with constant frustration.

The building speaks that it wants to die. The creaking of floors and the constant knocking of pipes that have water running through them is an audible joy that I would love to share with the world. The slow drone of the community dryer doing anything but drying is plodding away, knowing that whenever the person using it shows up, they will need to have another dollar twenty-five in order to finish the job.

As I start to get ready to leave, the awkward booty call upstairs starts back up. At this point it’s humorous, as she must now feel pity for him and is allowing him to at least finish strong. As I lace up my shoes and head out the door, a young couple come down the stairs. I can only hold my grin so much as the matted hair and look of dissatisfaction grace both their faces. She is rambling on about something while he smokes a cigarette and agrees to whatever she is saying. He is dressed for work of which appears to be at some restaurant as he has on a single piece of flair with his black shirt. Apparently he never saw Office Space, or maybe he did. I have got to get out of this apartment, before I lose my fucking mind.