E-Zine

Issue 006

The man wants to talk / Page 6

Another reason why I don't keep a barking dog in the house

Author: Sean Colletti

There are people upstairs -
I can hear them.

Their crow feet
scratch above my ceiling
and keep me up
at night, thinking about
the dead bodies
that must be stuffed
in their refrigerators.

During the day,
I tip-toe on bare feet
hoping that they won't
notice me. My wife wanted
to get a dog, but I told her
no - it would surely
disturb the people
upstairs.

When I waited for her response,
I realized I wasn't married
and was talking to a porcelain swan.
Its concave eyes sucked me in
through some kind of portal
and left me in an apartment building
suspended in space. It had only two
rooms - mine and the one above it.

I waited silently for the people upstairs
to make some kind of sound, but
they didn't. They must have figured out
that I was listening.

Instead of sleeping, I spent hours
staring out my window at the infinite
emptiness, waiting to hear the creak
of a door or their feet
scraping against the wood.

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