Thin Walls

The walls in my apartment are thin. The sounds of my neighbors pass through them with ease. It is as if my walls speak to me, regardless of time or mood. My walls tell me the secrets of my neighbors' lives. Both the walls and myself live vicariously through these secrets; these snapshots of faces never seen, people never met. And yet they are not so unfamiliar to me.

I roll out of bed and one couple greets me. Their morning routine already begun, welcomes me into the day. I hear the clank and the clatter of dishes, the whistle of a teakettle, their routine discussion of the day's agenda. As I don my robe and slippers their discussion, as if on cue, escalates as it always does. Their row over who's responsible for the daily this and that's beating through our shared walls, roaring out of the vents. Traveling through my apartment I leave them.

Awaiting me in my kitchen, other than a cup of instant coffee and a bowl of generic bran flakes, is a man I've named Moe. Moe is a relatively quiet man, aside from his morning dose of MSNBC. I picture Moe standing in the kitchen impatiently starring at his coffee maker, desperately awaiting the day's first cup of French Roast. From the other room, in which his TV must be stationed, the latest headlines boom through his cavernous, barely furnished apartment. Moe seems to rarely have visitors, so I imagine both he and his apartment are distinctly hermit-sequel. This boom travels past his ears and bellows through our walls. As long as I have Moe, I will never need to watch the news on my own TV set.

I place my empty cereal bowl beside the sink. I leave Moe and the riots in Oaxaca, the AIDS in Africa, the fires in California. I shower, I dress; I leave the world of others to begin my own day.

My day was long, tense. My muscles ache and my head pounds. I fill the tub with water so hot that steam fills the bathroom, and spills into the hallway. The mirror reflects nothing, any image hidden behind a coat of foggy mist. I sink into he scalding, bubbly water. The scent of magnolia fills my nostrils, and as if my magic releases the tightness of my face.

There is no silence however. Through the moist and foggy air the young couple, newly married, newly arrived, makes passionate love. I imagine that they are newly married. Just as I imagine so many things about the people who unknowingly or unconcernedly share their lives with me. From what I hear, I gather bits and pieces of truth, and mold them into a complete picture with the glue of imagination.

This beautiful, young couple, man and wife, have not yet become the pair that greets me each morning. I wonder if they will. If they will grow apart. Two magnets of the same charge, no longer opposites pulling towards the other, but instead repelling away. Will they repel so far as to separate? Will she leave? Will she leave and he become withdrawn? Sullen? A hermit? Will he become Moe? Is that what happened to Moe? I decide it must be.

Yes it is better to believe Moe is the victim of a love gone awry rather than a poor personality. It garnishes more sympathy. Sympathy in place of pity.

The bubbles have dissipated. The water is now cold and the fog has vanished. My bathroom has returned to its ordinary state. I can no longer imagine I am standing on an English moor, or galloping through the mists of Avalon.

The young couple has climaxed and finished. The walls have passed into their dormant state. This state of quiet, pf pure solitude is brief and unwelcome. For it is when the walls are silent, when they cease their speaking that I am reminded of my loneliness. My imagination shuts down and reality washes over me opening my mind's eye to the true emptiness of my apartment; of my life. I am not Moe. I am not the couple, young or old. Their lives are not mine. It is in the state of quiet, of pure solitude that I am unable to vicariously live; am unable to live.

I lay in the tub as it drains. The cold air prickling my skin as the level of water slowly lowers. The draining water pulls my body to the tub, and a suction noise echoes throughout the room. I wrap a towel around my goose-pimpled skin and drudge into my bedroom. The warmth of the towel is replaced by the warmth of the covers. The sheets warming my back, the feather down warming my front. My head sinks into the pillow and I shut my eyes. I sleep soundly, knowing that life will greet me on the other side.