was a normal morning by all accounts, and a busy one at that. After waking up I had done my usual routine.
First I went around the apartment to make sure the drapes remained sealed across each window. Over time the adhesive from the tape that I had used to secure them tightly to the wall would become worn and lose its gluey quality. I couldn’t be sure when the adhesive would fail, and it wasn’t worth the risk to just wait and see. In the past, I had waited for the tape to come undone before securing a new piece. But after having spent so much time protecting myself from the outside world, only to be infiltrated because the sticky substance on a small piece of tape had failed, wasn’t worth the risk or the anxiety.
The rest of my routine involves a series of calculated steps that I had carefully developed since moving into the building. There’s squishing the trash in the trash basket to make room for more, or if the trash can’t be squished any further, shuffling the bag to a new spot under the sink and starting a new one. I’ve worked out a system whereby I only need to take my trash out two, maybe three times per year. This of course saves energy, but more importantly, reduces the risk of me coming into contact with what’s out there.
The next item on the list is breakfast, and once I’m finished eating, I normally have to shuffle around the dishes in the sink. Over the course of several days I’ll end up using various sizes of plates, bowls, cups, and utensils. In order to eliminate the number of times that I have to wash the dishes, and prevent the shrill clang of handling porcelain, which could draw unnecessary attention to my abode, I let them sit in the sink until I can’t fit any more. What I don’t think other people realize is that if you stack similarly shaped dishes together, with the large plates at the bottom, followed by the small plates, and then the bowls, you can substantially increase the sink space, and hold off on washing dishes for up to a week. The task is straight forward, and only takes simply organizing skills to accomplish, but translates into a huge payoff for the efforts. I sometimes take this concept even further by using disposable dishes, which can push my dish washing timeline out two, sometimes even three weeks. Unfortunately, this method ruffles with my trash plan and I’ve yet to find the right balance.
Once these tasks are complete, I tend to focus on one of the many projects I’ve started around the apartment. It takes my mind off things when I’m keeping busy. Today, I planned to paint the walls in my living room again. They’re currently dark gray, and they get slightly darker with each new coat of paint. I would have gone with my instincts and painted the walls black, but since the trim, drapes, kitchen cupboards, and most of the furniture is black, I thought the contrast would be more visually appealing. I often wonder if I made the right decision.
I began readying my paint supplies, taking the brushes and paint cans from under the sink, preparing myself for another long day. It’s worth pointing out here that something strange happens to a man’s senses when he’s been in quiet solitude as long as I have. I might be getting up there in age, but not so much that I can blame physical incapacities on the passage of time. It was being alone that altered my state. This is so much the case that the slightest sound seems to reverberate, making my eardrums pound as though a marching band were playing in my skull. So, with my body half buried under the kitchen sink while I rummaged around looking for some rags, and my mind consumed by the color dark gray, my ears suddenly burned with intensity, as though several wasps had flown in and attacked when I heard the creak of the mail slot opening. I turned quickly to look at the front door of my apartment and watched a small black envelop slip through the open crack and land on the floor.
I closed the cupboard door and stepped toward the letter, trying to be as quiet as I could. I had heard the mail man leave, but something told me to be careful about the amount of noise I was making. I picked up the letter from the floor and when I saw that the return address was the same address as my own, I knew who the letter had come from. Without hesitation I ripped open the outside flap and pulled the paper from its cocoon.
Dear John,
You’ve been our tenant for some time, and we’re glad that you’re living here. We value all of our residents, and want you to make the most of your stay. We notice that you don’t go out of your apartment much to enjoy the building or the property. If you have read the other letters, you’ll remember that you have unlimited access to all of the amenities. We first wrote to you because we thought you might have forgotten this. We were hopeful that a friendly reminder would stir your memory.
When we noticed that you ignored the first letter, we wrote a second one. This time we sensed that you had become scared of us. This is not uncommon. Our letters get ignored sometimes and we had explained when we wrote the second time that we had not taken it personally. When you didn’t respond to the second letter, we became concerned, and wrote again. In the third letter, you’ll remember that we described the facility and amenities of the property in great detail. We find that when people stop using the amenities, they forget what the building and the property has to offer. In your case these letters have thus far proved ineffective.
There’s one more item to cover and then I have a request. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten, but your building will be torn down very soon. All of our residents have been informed. Do you remember the sign that’s hanging from the door of your apartment, or the ones near the entrance to the building? Sometimes people ignore the signs and that’s when we start sending letters. If you need a reminder, here’s what they say:
“Please use the amenities as much as possible.”
“Your building will be torn down. Please become familiar with the road to the new building.”
We’re afraid that you won’t know the way to the new building, or worse yet, that you won’t want to leave this one when it gets torn down.
We want to meet face to face. If you’re not using the amenities, or listening to the signs, there must be a good reason, and we would like to know what that reason is.
At your convenience, please come down to the basement. I’m always there, day and night.
Sincerely,
Sam
Assistant to the Headmaster
I could remember getting the other letters. I could also remember throwing them in the trash shortly after I’d read them. I put this one down and took a moment to consider my options.
For a number of years, the group that was now sending me letters seemed to be targeting me. Then, for a long while they had left me mostly to myself, only promoting their message passively through signs hanging around the building. It seemed their tactics were again becoming aggressive. I can remember this one time, just after I first moved into the building, a man wearing a janitorial uniform came up to me in the lobby. It was the first encounter.
I had been working as a professor of science and lost my position due matters beyond my control. I won’t get into the details, but you know how professors can be—even deans—when faced with intellectual superiority. With my pension lost, I decided to get a smaller place. While I was carrying my burden of despair, this man walked right up and shook my hand. The encounter was startling, as I was quite vulnerable at the time, and with no other companions, I welcomed the sudden camaraderie.
It didn’t take long for the interaction to sour. After working through some niceties, he suddenly began spouting all kinds of nonsense about some sort of terrorist group or cult. I listened politely at first; being new to the building, I didn’t want to make any enemies. He capitalized on my attention, and before long had explained the intricacies of how the world would end in fire, and that judgement was coming, and that it was the aim of his group to take over not just the building, or the city, but the entire world. I wouldn’t have been quite so alarmed if not for the sheer self-confidence of the man—his
