The silence in my apartment took me time to get used to, but now it is my escape from chaos and unnecessary noises . I have been living alone in this apartment from the past one year and the best part about it is that the entire floor is vacant .Why do I prefer living alone?, you may ask. The answer is pretty simple,I am scared of people, and what they are capable of doing.Thus, i feel safe alone.
When you live alone, your entire home is your territory, and what I love the most about it, is not having to close my bathroom door. The freedom to roam around my home without having to worry how I dress up, you are the most honest person when no one’s around. My broker, when he showed me this flat last year was really excited about the bathroom door. “ Look at it Madam, it is a sliding door and has mirror on both the sides.” I did not want to disappoint the man, So I went to the door pretending to admire it but in reality I wanted to slide it open and it has never been slided back out ever since. It has been eternal bliss.
As all good things must come to an end, the door to the apartment right in front of mine was open, with multiple moving boxes outside. I tried to figure out what happened, then I saw him, a lean guy wearing a super hero T shirt. He smiled and told me his name, but I wasn’t listening. I moved towards the lift. He looked like one of those serial killers from all those corny TV shows. Like one of those nerdy guy who would strangle the most popular girl of their school if they didn’t go out with him, and no one would have guessed it’s them because they were always the shy one. But he couldn’t fool me even if he tried.
Its been a week since he moved in, and his behavioural pattern is making it apparent that I need to be a little more careful. This guy is weird, the very evening of the day that he moved in, I remember him opening the box of tools, it was a huge box for a guy so small. He smiled at me and said “ I like carpentry”. Chills ran down my spine.
Every day I find him standing at the door of his apartment when I leave for work, he gives me a sly smile but I keep a plain face. I don’t know how to live with this fear, I want to move out of this place, I have finally slid close the bathroom door now and when I walk towards my washroom unaware, my own reflection scares the shit out of me.
I needed to tell someone how my life was in danger, I remember how unsafe I felt few years back and shared it with my mom, in order to make her understand how anything could harm me I had to give her demonstrations. She thought I was paranoid. But, I succeded in convincing her.
I could not take it anymore, I finally walked up to his door and reluctantly knocked. He opened up “Hi, Neighbour”. I got straight to the point. “ Your presence is dangerous for me, you have all sorts of tools that could easily kill a person”. He watched me with his mouth open, just like my Mom.
His house wasn’t settled, his toolbox cardboard was still lying next to the sofa. I jumped towards it and got the Screwdriver out. “ See, this can easily puncture a hole in the brain or neck and it scares me to have a man live on same floor as me with such stuffs.” He started calling me names but I wasn’t listening. This convincing wasn’t going to be easy, just like it was with my Mom and her Kitchen knife. I got closer to him to explain what I felt. I took the Screwdriver and pushed it through his skull, he couldn’t make what happened , I just wished for him to understand how unsafe it was have such stuff around without the demonstration. But this guy wouldn’t understand it without one, Just like my Mom.