They did it in secret, but unlike other affairs, neither of them let on in the least via paranoia or obvious guilt that what they had was any more than a casual co-worker acquaintance. It wasn’t like either of them had anything to hide, really; they worked in different departments, were both single, had common interests. But somehow it was better when it was their secret. Perhaps the attraction would not have lasted had they been open about it, made a “real couple” of themselves. Whatever the excitement factor, it was working for them.

They started out slowly, perhps not even realizing what they were building between each other at first; they would go out for coffee, lunch, happy hour, talk about office politics, office gossip.

They talked about movies and music, told jokes, discussed world events. They debated about philosophy, dogma, leanings. They analysed fiction, poetry, dreams. They never confided, instead skirting around the edges of intimacy without actually crossing its borders.

Eventually, she ended it. She had to, in spite of and because of how wrapped up in it she’d become.

It was difficult – where, when would she ever again find someone to sneak into the copy room after six with for “fax” (as they joked)? Who else would fuck her and then go out for a good movie and coffee afterward? How could she justify not wearing underwear to work from now on?

A boyfriend would never agree to such things, at least not after the initial magic wore off and the comfortable familiarity settled in, this she knew. She certainly didn’t want to make a boyfriend out of him – not for typical reasons, though; he was clean, attractive, good in bed, fun to be around, interesting to talk to. It wasn’t quite that she didn’t want to ruin the spontenaiety and excitement of their relationship, either. She just knew that there was some sort of expiry date on such fun, and would rather tear the metaphysical Band-Aid off in one shot than risk discovering his bad side.

She managed to rationalize the situation nearly to death, and was content that she’d had the experience, happy to have known someone like that without letting it get bad or, worse, boring.

He, on the other hand, was devastated.

–

Kathleen Savoy was once a Black Heart staffer. She is a secretive individual, thus we can say no more about her personal activities or current whereabouts. (In other words: we’ve lost her bio and had to make this one up on the spot.)

You wonder what it could have been that made you jump. You look around the apartment; maybe your dog knocked something over. The dog is on the couch, looking confused. The crash must have woken him up. You check the kitchen in case one of the precariously balanced dirty dishes has slipped and fallen to its death on the linoleum below the sink. All are intact (and, sadly, still dirty).

"leicester; let the whiteness numb you" (photo by Flickr user h i k a r i . a k i r a)

You look out the windows for a broken car window or kids messing around or a guilty-looking raccoon skittering away from the dumpsters in the parking lot. You see cars, some broken glass, some chunks of wood and a piece of wrecked, twisted metal. Same as usual, in this dump. Your car looks fine, so you go back to your book.

When you start cooking dinner, you see the red lights flashing, making patterns on the kitchen walls. The steam from the pots on the stove has fogged up the windows. You wipe a patch clear, and through
the streaky, wet glass you can see the top of an ambulance. You hope it isn’t anyone you know. Then you realize that you don’t know anyone in the building.

It’s quiet all night.

You forget about it for about a week, until you notice that the mail is piling up in apartment 206′s box. Or maybe they have a parcel. You shouldn’t be looking in other’s mailboxes anyhow. Maybe someone’s grandma died. You think about your grandmother. You were so sad when she died. You were ten.

You come home from work late one night and see a young man in the corridor, carrying his trash down to the basement. He pulls his door shut behind him and you’d have paid him no notice, except the number on his door is 206. You’re in 201, but he’s next to you, somehow. The apartment numbers must be circular, you think as you unlock your door and start letting your jacket fall from your shoulders.

Was that young man someone’s grandson, cleaning up after the funeral? A new tennant? You try to recall the expression on his face, trying to remember if he looked sad or bereaved somehow. It’s none of your business, you tell yourself. Feed the dog. Make dinner. Finish reading that book. Take out your trash.

Every now and then, you see the guy in apartment 206. You try to figure out if he looks sad or indifferent or ill. Every time you scold yourself because, really, that crash and the ambulance may not have had anything to do with apartment 206. But you’re suspicious. Why do you need to know so much? It’s some sort of bad luck for someone you don’t even know. These things happen every day, you see ambulances everywhere, why should it matter any more than usual just because it was at your building?

You vow to stop obsessing over it.

You come home from work, feed the dog and start dinner. You’re bored. The most exciting thing to have happened in the last week was that ambulance, and you vowed not to think about it. It’s not something
exciting that happened directly to you anyhow. You decide to go to the café across the street to read your book. The evening waitress is nice and sometimes takes her cigarette break at your table.

She isn’t there that evening. You consider asking about her, but she’s younger than you, and pretty, and you don’t want to look like some lecherous pig, stalking waitresses. Maybe she changed shifts. You’re feeling guilty because you realize that you are that lecherous pig; you’d sneaked a peek at her cleavage once, when she came by to refill your cup. You’d many times admired the shape of her ass and hips in the tight jeans she wore to work. You actually know the colour of her eyes (or at least you think you do – green or grey?), but you’d never realized you’d had a crush on her before.

When you get home from work the next day, you go straight to the café after hastily leaving dinner out for the dog. Your life is boring. If you have a crush on that girl, so be it. Why not pursue it?

Again she’s not there. So you ask about her. The girl replacing her sort of shrugs and says that she doesn’t know her, that must be the girl who quit or something.

You can’t even be bothered to be disappointed. You know you have nothing to be down about, but you feel heavy. You know it’s just boredom. You get back to your book.

You hate this town. Ok, that’s a lie. You moved here because you’d visited once, and when the offer from the company came you snapped it up. You were bored where you were before. You were bored in school, and you were bored as a child. This is nothing new. But the heaviness is. You’re sick of boredom, of tedium. You don’t really know anyone here, and you know that’s your own fault. You could make friends at the office. You have a few acquaintances that you have lunch with sometimes, but no-one close. You know that eventually you will have to deal with the repressed grief from your mother and your sisters’ deaths. But that’s not what this is.

You tell yourself you’re not lonely.

Your dog yawns. He’s bored too. He’s old, he has arthritis and you know it’s a matter of time before you won’t have him either.

These are not productive thoughts; you stick your face in your book to avoid pondering sad topics any longer.

You decide to turn in early after walking the dog. You have a vivid dream in which you are having coffee with the cute waitress. She tells you it’s a slump you’re in and you have to get out of it before your life has rushed past you. She kisses your cheek and you wake up with a hard-on. Jerking off is definitely the high point of the day that follows.

A month later, your dog dies in his sleep. You start listening to a lot of jazz around the house because you can’t stand the emptiness – though you’d never admit that to yourself – and because you feel you ought to in your position. A single guy in his thirties, no relations, no real friends, with no social life; it sounds like the life of someone a bit more glamorous, like a poet or a musician or an artist.

Eventually it happens. You come home from work, make some dinner, put on a Coltrane record, sit on the couch and that’s when it happens: you burst into tears. You cry for more than an hour straight. You cry until your eyes burn and swell up and you’ve gone hoarse from sobbing. You’ve cried a large wet spot into the cushioned arm of your couch. You’ve sniffled so hard that your nose hurts. There is a pile of soggy tissues next to you. Your breath is ragged and you know that if you tried to speak, you’d be hoarse.

You feel good, better, happier. You needed that.

You feel alive.

Six years later, you bump into your landlady from the apartment building. You find out that the pretty girl in the coffee shop had lived in apartment 206, the apartment next to yours. Why you hadn’t known that at the time seems a little strange. You just compulsively asked the landlady about that night with the ambulance, that night you hadn’t thought about once since the day you vowed to stop obsessing over it. You also find out that the pretty girl had hanged herself from the window frame, and the loud crash you’d heard that night was the glass breaking as the weight of her corpse brought the whole thing down with her into the parking lot.

Your ex-landlady tells you about the girl’s brother, how sweet he was about cleaning up the apartment and how devastated he was about the whole thing.

You sympathize for a moment before asking about other things like weather and life before getting on your way home. You kiss your wife hello and feed the dog.

You spend the rest of the evening listening to that John Coltrane record, hoping desperately to dream about the girl one more time, but you don’t, not ever again.

–

Kathleen Savoy was once a Black Heart staffer. She is a secretive individual, thus we can say no more about her personal activities or current whereabouts. In other words, we’ve lost her bio and had to make this one up on the spot.