Collection of One-Shots

》the high rise

Life in the high rise was many things. Tame was not one of them. The nights were filled with vivacious parties on the upper floors that echoed through the entire building, even in the lobby if all else was quiet in the building. The days, where I had expected them to disciplined, were filled with even more alcohol. Cocktail parties occurred from dusk till dawn without fail. Even when everything seemed to be in order the monstrous addition to the skyline creaked and groaned. If you stood still long enough on the 25th floor you could almost feel the entire structure swaying, swaying to the rhythm of life.

The high rise had a way of creating its own unique genre of music. A dog would bark from the balcony, the elevators constantly hummed and drummed, the 'dings' that signaled their arrival seemed to be some type of blessing. In the beginning the residents of the high rise would keep their doors open in the evening, the televisions could be heard clearly in the hall, the domesticated sounds of dinner being prepared, children playing, and husbands returning from work. It was oddly normal, and given time something was bound to go wrong.

It was on a normal day that I had finally met one of my neighbors, he had recently moved in as well, though the way we met was reasonably shocking. I had cooked a small brunch as it was the weekend, the flat was silent asides from the sizzling sound of sausages. The silence was only broken by a liquor bottle being thrown from the upper floors, it hit the tiles of my balcony and spattered like oil on a hot pan. As my plan had been to take my meal on the balcony I gathered a broom and dustpan, carefully sweeping up the glass shards and frowning at the now cracked grey tile.

"They've cracked your tile too?" The voice startled me, but I turned to see Dr. Robert Laing staring at me and the cracked tile from over the railing on his own private balcony. His face was ruddy from a morning workout and when the breeze picked up it carried the musky scent of him and his cologne. The white robe he wore contrasted with the dark steel and concrete of the building, the only colors were the sky and his reddish-brown hair.

"Unfortunately. Should I bother repairing it?" I didn't know that it would become a nightly occurrence, that the sound of shattering glass, whether it be a bottle or window would become a lullaby.

He shrugged, "I wouldn't bother with it really." Then he's gone, disappearing back into his apartment with a scotch glass in hand, like a hermit.

As short as the first encounter had been, there were several others of equal shortness. The run in at the supermarket on the 10th floor as we had both been on a quest for a bottle of Riesling, the others at the gym, and within the elevators. These meetings were fleeting at best, but regardless of the few words spoken between us there was a mutual understanding that we were something akin to friends.

When the power surges began there was nothing abnormal, the tenants, including myself, would light the torches and carry on with life in the high rise. When the apartment raids began it was odd, but it became the norm. I would barricade the door with the furniture that could easily be stacked and moved, my measly supply of medicine and food was hidden under a bowed floorboard in the closet. The trash that clogged disposals and piled up in the halls, not to mention my flat was oddly acceptable and comforting.

With all the abnormalities, life in the high rise was still good. One evening, when I had eaten the last can of vegetables, perhaps in the entire building, I went onto the balcony. A rarity as the falling glass and bodies could easily kill you should you be in the open for too long. Word that day had been that the raids were starting up again, at the head was Richard Wilder, a grim man with little resolve left to maintain sanity and the only thing that could frighten me at the moment. I had braced my hands on the railing of the balcony and pushed up onto the tips of my toes, leaning over the slightest amount that if I closed my eyes was weightless, I could fly. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." It was Laing.