Tabula Rasa

We usually hear him shouting, late at night. Swearing. Vitriol oozing through the walls, contaminating our home with its sticky presence. Sticking to us, making us shout. Swear. He lives in there by himself, or at least we have never seen anyone else in the 9 months we have lived here. We don’t know who he is shouting at. The walls are thick enough that you can hear the violence, but not the specifics. This was different though. Another sound. A different sound. The sound of smashing. Shattering. Splintering. Breaking. Like he was taking a hammer to the wall dividing us. We exchanged a quiet glance. Straining to listen. Straining to penetrate the brickwork. Straining to understand. Silence. It stopped as quickly as it had started. Unease settled on us like falling dust. We conferred. Should we go round and check on him? Isabelle said we should go round, make sure he was alright. I said it was late and we didn’t want to disturb him, he probably just knocked something off the counter. I knew I was lying. We awoke the next day to the sound of an ambulance.