A Solitary Neighbor Leaves No Witnesses

Flash Fiction by Marcelo Medone

My neighbor is very kind. Her name is Dorothy. She is sixty years old and could be my mother. I know all her movements and her quirks, because she is a very methodical old lady and hardly ever leaves her apartment. She doesn’t even have a dog to take for a walk. For me it’s a fortunate thing, because I don’t stand pets. I guess to her I’m just the lonely boy who lives across the corridor.

Sometimes we meet, usually when I go out into the hall, and she goes to throw out the trash. I don’t think we meet by chance. People her age tend to have daily routines, such as always taking out the garbage at the same time, which is not the case for her. I’m sure she’s waiting for hours for me to open my door so she can go out with her black bag ready. I am no fool.

Like any old woman, she is very curious.

She asks me how I am, if I don’t need something and why I live alone, like her, if I don’t have a girlfriend or friends. Sometimes she can become too annoying.

All I need is for her is to leave me alone and stay out of my private affairs. I don’t like being asked personal questions. I never tell her anything, but she insists on being a good neighbor and shows some interest in my things.

The only thing I managed to tell her was that I am a sculptor, and I make my human models in clay, life size, but that was worse because it gave her a subject to get into confidence and try to advance my intimacy. She told me that she had been a painter in her youth and specialized in portraits, so we had something in common to share. She even offers to bring me some homemade cake or some butter cookies, but I always very kindly refuse.

This morning, I bumped into her in the corridor. I tried to dodge her, but in vain. She was especially insistent. She cornered me against the elevator door.

“Forgive my insistence, my dear. But I’m intrigued by the work in your sculpture workshop. Is it abstract or figurative art? I’m dying to admire one of your pieces.”

I gave her my best annoyed face, but she didn’t notice.

“It’s hyper realistic sculpture. A lot of people find it repulsive. You won’t like it.”

“Art is Art, always,” she said to me like someone repeating a phrase from a cheap manual. “My criterion for beauty is very broad,” she finished, perhaps with not so artistic intentions.

“I’ll think about it,” I said, calculating the possibilities I faced.

I’m sure Dorothy watches me all the time, spying on me through the peephole when I arrive and when I leave. I’m sure she is suspicious of me when I make strange noises in the kitchen and bathroom at night, although I try not to make any kind of noise.

But not everything always works out for me.

Sometimes they resist.

I must be more careful.

It unnerves me to keep the secret and makes my hair stand on end to know that she is there, watching me, waiting for me to reveal myself.

I don’t trust old curious motherly ladies.

I’m going to have to invite Dorothy over to my apartment for tea and to bring me her butter cookies. She’ll probably think I’ve decided to make peace with her.

That will be her last mistake.

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Bio: Marcelo Medone (1961, Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions nominee fiction writer, poet, essayist, playwright and screenwriter. He received numerous awards and was published in multiple languages in more than 50 countries around the world, including the US. He currently lives in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Cover photo by pexels/Joey Nguyễn

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