... that lives in the apartment next to ours.
Well, that was profound, wasn't it?
He lives alone, and is middle-aged (perhaps on the later end of the spectrum). He's the type of man that just makes your heart break a little every time you see him, because he gives you a nod and a shy hello, then walks past you with his head down, so you can almost imagine how painstaking it must be for him to communicate with you. He's a bit gruff, but almost seems gentle. He leaves every morning to go to work, gets home, then leaves again almost every night for a few hours. I've never followed him (that would be creepy), but I always wonder where he could be going...
He seldom has visitors, and is always quiet. He has a lot of plants. I have never heard a vacuum come from his apartment, and I would know, because I can hear the people below us playing Guitar Hero all the time. I never smell freshly cooked food, not even stewed tomatoes, coming from the crack underneath his door. I never see him take out his garbage.
Is he a widower? An ex-con? A bachelor who could never find the excuse or reason to settle down?
I googled him a couple of months ago (not because I'm a stalker, but because I'm curious). He writes music reviews and plays an interesting musical instrument at folk music festivals. He takes pictures of trains. He has (what I would assume to be) a high paying job, yet he lives in the apartment next to ours. We live in an apartment that could be a lot better. It's not luxurious, but it's not a slum.
In his storage compartment in the laundry room (I don't understand why he has one, because we do not... maybe he's collected a lot of frequent flier miles with our landlord?), there's a lawn chair with a woman's name scrawled across the back of it in black marker. Maybe this is why I think he's gentle?
(but maybe it was stolen from his grandmother at the beach one afternoon, while she was dipping her feet in the cold Atlantic)
Because he never says hello to other people in the building, doesn't bring in packages off the stoop, waits in his car for you to walk by so he doesn't have to say hello, and doesn't help people when their cars are stuck in our driveway... he drives around them and goes into his apartment, next to ours...
i'm trying out some new things with this blog... just thoughts on paper (or computer) in the form of words and images... please, bear with me.
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