The Upstairs Place

The upstairs neighbours are noisy.

They drag furniture around at 2 AM.

-

Heavy scraping —

like a chair too big for the space,

legs grinding against warped floorboards.

-

I tell myself they’re just night owls,

odd schedules,

maybe insomniacs redecorating at strange hours.

-

But the sounds don’t make sense.

Nothing ever settles.

It’s like they move the same piece

back and forth,

never deciding where it belongs.

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And then there’s the knocking.

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At first, I thought it was hammering —

but no.

Softer,

closer.

Like fingertips.

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It’s not rhythmic,

not random either.

I even checked if it was Morse code.

But it isn’t.

-

Just tapping —

like someone waiting

for something to happen.

-

This building forgets people.

The walls swallow stories,

the ones no one bothers to remember.

-

It forgot Mr. Urbanek last winter.

-

He lived upstairs —

where the noises come from now, I know.

Had been there longer than anyone.

Quiet, mostly.

Polite.

The kind of man who became part of the wallpaper.

-

We spoke once —

on the stairs.

He handed me a sandwich,

wrapped in a napkin.

-

“You look… like my wife,” he said,

his voice thick with an old accent,

words stumbling over themselves.

“When she was young.”

-

I didn’t know what to say.

I took the sandwich.

Didn’t eat it,

but I remember the smell —

dry rye and something sour.

-

Like when they found him —

it had been weeks.

Not a pretty sight when they opened the door.

-

On his shelf were eight urns.

His whole family,

lined up in neat rows,

generations gone before him.

Parents, a sister,

his wife,

even a child.

-

That was all he had left.

-

We chipped in,

paid for his cremation too.

-

But there was nowhere to send him —

no more Czechoslovakia.

No home to return him to.

-

So we took the urns,

his ashes too,

and poured them into the backyard.

-

Quiet.

Almost respectful.

But not really.

-

And the upstairs neighbours?

Sometimes, I hear them muttering.

-

A language I don’t understand —

but recognize.

-

The same sounds Mr. Urbanek made

when he talked to himself in the stairwell.

-

Are they his friends?

People from the old country?

It’s hard to tell —

the voices are muffled,

like coming through too many walls.

-

I work late.

My clients start around 7 PM.

No one wants to fuck before that —

not with someone like me.

-

Sometimes they notice the noises.

Ask what it is.

-

I tell them —

neighbours,

old pipes,

this building’s just like that.

-

But the taps —

soft, persistent —

they keep coming.

-

Sometimes I feel them in my wrists,

when I’m working.

Like tiny pulses,

beating under the skin.

-

I tell myself it’s nothing.

-

But sometimes,

in the middle of a job,

I catch myself listening too hard —

waiting for the taps to stop.

-

And I wonder —

who’s moving the furniture?

-

But then —

I don’t want to know.

-

This building forgets people.

-

And sometimes,

it forgets

to let them go.

.