For the past month or so I have been tormented by sounds of female screaming and shrieking near my room. Since it happened at night and sounded very frightening, my first suspicion was of the otherworldly kind. Don’t snicker. There’s a tree outside my window, and we all know trees are scary.
One night the mystery was solved. All this time I had wanted to complain, but I just couldn’t figure out where the noise was coming from. I couldn’t place it as coming from left or right, upstairs or downstairs. But one night the screaming escalated, and I got a handle. It was my neighbour.
I called down a friend to prove to him that I wasn’t hearing voices, and even the girls from upstairs came down to check because it was THAT bad. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one who had been hearing noises, the girls from upstairs could even agree with me that the noise reached a peak every Saturday.
So now we knew who and where. I just didn’t want to do anything. By the sound of the heart-rending sobs and howls, I figured it was an extreme case of homesickness or boyfriend problems, although my money is on the latter because I don’t think anyone would ever dare to scream at their parents through the phone. I figured that since it wasn’t otherworldly, there was nothing to worry about.
Until just now. Instead of her usual howls and wails, she added a new item to the repertoire. Squeaking. It sounded like the involuntary sort you might give if someone were to leap on you unawares and tickle you to bits, except that it was repeated and it was getting mighty annoying. Along with high-pitched screaming (down the phone again I suppose) and stamping of feet, I had had enough.
Go ahead and argue, but keep it to yourself. Don’t even get me started on the immaturity of her behaviour. I thought humans grew out of foot-stamping after the age of 6.
I went over to her room door, and a bit further. I asked her other neighbour if she could hear the screaming too. By her reply I could tell she’d been putting up with it like I had. “That’s it,” I said. “I’m telling her to stop it.”
I knocked on her door, got a “heah?” and pushed it open a crack. “Hello,” I said, trying to start off friendly-like. “I’m your neighbour. Are you the one doing all the screaming?”
She came to the door and opened it. I repeated the question. “Oh,” she said. “That was me.”
“Well, can you keep the volume lower please? (As though she only had the radio blasting too loudly.) I’m not trying to stop you or anything, but I can hear you, next door can hear you and upstairs can hear you.”
“Oh, sorry.” After I left she closed the door and locked it. All the better. Heck, I hope she moves out. She can go torture some other soul next year, I hope I’ve humiliated her enough that she won’t dare live in my block again.
The time has come to lift us up from our lethargic lassitude, no mere loudness this that latently disrupts my learnings. Let this lull last long.
Can you catch the allusion? I am feeling brave, reckless and anarchic today. Don’t impinge on my right to study quietly, or you shall have to deal with L.
