"Your upstairs neighbor is moving back to Indiana", John the property manager said while helping me get rid of the old mattress. The first thing I thought was video games and instant messaging, the two constant sounds we hear coming from the floor above, starting sometime in the evening and lasting until midnight. At eight he wakes up to an alarm clock set not quite on a talk radio station so that we hear blaring words too staticky to make out. He quickly gets up to shut it off. He has an orange cat that looks down from the window above the patio.

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Amy occasionally expresses disdain for his audible hobbies, and I feel, as someone who enjoys video games, that I could relate to him, the sounds of foot steps and a scampering cat adding to the confusion of rumbles and machine gun fire. When Monique had come to visit, she got the floors mixed up on her way down from the roof, and tried to enter his apartment, finding it locked. She knocked and was surprised to see him open the door, a beard and hairy chest. Amy saw him drop his sandwich on his way down the stairs.

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Recently it seems like he's had friends over, maybe a woman. There was a loud thumping sound in the middle of the night, Amy claims, but I didn't wake up to hear it. Going back to Indiana, huh? I might say were I to meet him and be familiar enough to ask meaningfully about his future. I think of him as being lonely but I don't have any idea. I wonder if he hears Amy I calling the cat, or arguing. I wonder if our moving in had any impact on his decision to leave, the before and after contrast a reminder of stagnation. John is moving into his place at the beginning of June. Carolyn might move into John's old place. We're staying here for the time being.