So this is a story I wrote in a creative writing program. We were suppose to develop a scene and go on from there. I never got to finish the ending, but here it is...
Through plaster ceilings, moaning seeped into Eric’s apartment. One of the tenants above him was having sex once again, and obnoxiously expressing his passion with loud drawn out yells of staggering aggression. Eric was trying to focus on the text message he was trying to write to his best friend, Christa, but sounds above him blocked his concentration. Eric walked over to his bed and grabbed a pillow. He wrapped it around the back of his head, while using his hands to stuff the edges into his ears.
“I can’t stand this anymore,” yelled Eric. “I’m tired of this shit. Every time I sit down to rest, I hear him and these women.”
For years, Eric has watched this man go through girls like toothpicks, using them and moving on to the next one, but Eric never wrestled up the guts to confront him. He still had to live with him after all.
Today was different though. Everyday this week, Eric ordered from the Chinese restaurant down the street from his apartment. Its name was The Three Fortunes, and each day Eric bought the same thing: an order of beef chowmein, jiaozi, and two egg rolls. Waiting for his order, Eric usually broke open a fortune cookie expecting to read something sentimental and cliché. Today Eric read one that seemed to have directly spoken to him, “Fear will separate you from love.” As he read the crinkled fortune sheet, Eric’s phone began to erupt with his best friend’s favorite song.
Now, still hearing the moans through his palms, Eric flopped the pillow back on his bed in despair. Sitting. Staring. Soaking in his pathetic apartment, with its paper-thin ceiling, chipped paint, noisy downtown traffic coming through the windows, and over-priced rent. Eric gazed up at the ceiling, thinking that he was finally going to do something about this man. The moans were consuming Eric’s thoughts, and in the midst of his plan for confronting him, he could not help but imagine what the girl was doing to cause such a commotion, what dirty, seductive position she must be in to moan this loud. Shaking the sexual thoughts from his mind, Eric raced to his miniature kitchen to grab a broom.
“This will show him.”
Eric dragged the broom back to his room, and with the stick end, he plunged it in the air, causing it to crash into the ceiling. White dust sprinkled on the top of Eric’s head, and he could hear the man above him shuffling in his room.
“What the hell was that?”
“Ex-ex-excuse me sir, Do you mind, I mean, All that moaning up there needs to stop!”
“You need to mind your damn business!”
“You need to stop the moaning!”
There was a mumbling in the background that Eric could barely hear, telling the man to get back to bed.
“If you have a problem with me buddy, you’ll have to take it up with me later,” the man stated with laugher.
Eric’s face fumed with anger, and began bagging the broom in the ceiling harder with each hit. Not stopping to hear the man’s response, Eric threw the broom across the floor, and ran to his door that led out to the apartment hallway.
Rushing out into the hallway, Eric stopped and peered into the mirror hanging on the wall next to the stairwell leading into the other floors. He stared into his face, looking at his pale, white skin and slanted eyes. He then scrunched his face and growled at his reflection, desiring to resemble a sumo wrestler, but he was not fat. Never was.
Eric looked so skinny that his grandmother would pile plates of food on his plate anytime he came to visit her apartment in Chinatown.
“Wài pó! No, really. I’m full.”
“Uh huh, you can’t be. Here! Take more!”
There was no point in arguing with her.
Now staring into the mirror, Eric started to picture the man above him. Although he lived in his apartment for years, Eric never met him. He once thought he saw the man while taking groceries up the stairs for a old woman on Eric’s floor, but he continued on to his floor, not looking much into it.
Glancing back into his eyes, Eric took in a deep breath and stuck his hands into his front pockets of his jeans. He felt the smooth edges of the crinkled fortune cookie sheet that he stuffed in there earlier at the Three Fortune. With the tips of his fingers, Eric carefully pulled the sheet out of his pocket, making sure not to rip it. Eric unfolded the sheet and rubbed it against his pants leg, trying to smooth out the fold marks. Reading the fortune over again, Eric slowly stared at each word, paying close attention to the words “fear” and “love.” Christa came to his mind.
He thought about his last conversation with her at the Three Fortune. He wanted so bad to tell her that he loved her, but instead he let her tell him about a guy she met at the gym and how amazing he was.
“He sounds nice Christa.”
“I know right. He was so tall and charming and sensitive and…wait. Am I talking too much?”
Yes. Eric thought
“No, but I wouldn’t trust this guy. You barely know him.”
“Well that’s why I’m going on a date with him tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yea, Tonight.”
“Oh, well have fun.”
Right there is where Eric knew he messed up. He didn’t want her to have fun. That was the last thing he wanted her to do. His last words to her crossed his mind as he hung up the phone, grabbed his order of Chinese food, walked back to his apartment, stuck the key into his apartment door, and placed his bag on the kitchen counter.
“What the hell was I thinking?”
Now Eric was again asking the same question, but now wondered, “Why the hell did I grab that broom.”
Eric slowly paced to the right of the staircase and looked at the steps leading to the next floor. Not really knowing where he was going, he walked toward the first step. Just when he lifted his foot toward the second step, Eric heard a voice calling his name from below.
“Eric! Eric!”
It was the old woman, Mrs. Lee, from his floor asking him to carry her groceries, but she couldn’t speak a word of English.
“qǐng nǐ bāng wǒ ma?”
“shi le. Sure, I’ll help you Ms. Lee.”
Eric met Ms. Lee half way down the stairwell and grabbed her bags. Staggering to her apartment Door, Eric thought about his original reason for coming into the Hall, He sat Mrs. Lee’ Bags down, told her no problem, and motioned back to the stairwell leading to the floor above him.
