Villainy

The candles are lit and I can feel them burning around me as I sit and breathe, attempting the exercises that my first therapist gave me and failing, and then just doing my best to turn my mind off. It almost works, and then there's another knock on my door. I sigh and contemplate not getting up, but then the knocking comes again, more insistently.

I blow out the candles and stand up, dismissing the thought of any kind of peace. I know it's silly to try, but since I don't wish for anything, I have to work for it. There's more knocking and it shocks me enough to cause me to stumble and kick over one of the candles I've just extinguished, effectively spilling wax all over my foot and floor.

"Fuck! I'm coming, I'm coming, relax!" I shout, as I stumble my way over to the door, cursing whoever it is that is behind my door.

I open the door, standing on one foot, to find my unimpressed-looking landlord. "Rent's due."

"Yeah, I know. It's on my counter, just give me a second." Unfortunately when I step away from the door, he decides to follow me inside, which probably means that we're going to have some kind of conversation, which is something that I generally try to avoid whenever possible. I grab the cash-stuffed envelope and hand it to him. He makes a show of opening it and counting the cash to make sure it's right before nodding and giving me a half-smile as he stuffs it in his jacket pocket.

"Is there anything else I can do for you?" I say, gritting my teeth because I just want to take care of my foot but I'm not going to touch it until he leaves.

He holds his hands up defensively. "Calm down, I was just hoping to have a neighborly conversation." I weigh my options in my head and decide to gesture to one of the two chairs in my kitchen, allowing him to take a seat. I may not like him, or anyone, really, but I try not to piss off the people who provide important things to me like a place to live, or food, or money.

"Just give me a second to take care of my foot."

"Oh, what happened?" I mean to tell him, although he sounds about as disinterested as I've ever heard someone attempting to express concern, but then I remember a very strict "no flame" rule, and make something up about stubbing my toe on my way to the door.

I clean the wax off and run cold water over the burned areas before applying a bit of cream and throwing on a pair of socks. When I get back to the kitchen, he's just sitting there, waiting for me. "Can I get you something to drink?"

I don't want to get him something to drink. I want to get him out of my apartment, but I know that I need to be civil, so I try. It's not that I can't do it, it's just that I don't usually find it necessary. "No,. thank you. I actually just have to talk to you about a complaint that I've gotten about you."

"A complaint?" I make my surprise known as I sit down across from him. "I've lived here for how many years without a single complaint; what's changed?"

"Why don't you tell me?" he prompts, looking me in the eye for the first time in our entire exchange, and he actually does appear a bit concerned. "Your neighbors complain about hearing sobs and screams coming out of here almost every night. Either you're torturing and killing people in here, or you going through something. Either way, it's time that I step in."

"Well, I'm not torturing or killing people. And I'm not really going through anything. Are they sure it's coming from my apartment?"

He looks confused. "Well, yes. Haven't they talked to you about it at all?"

"They've never spoken a word to me. I don't even know which neighbors you're talking about, but no one on this floor has ever said anything to me about anything, so whoever is making this complaint either has a problem with me or just enjoys starting trouble."

"Or you have some kind of real fucking problem," I hear from the door, and I turn to see who's standing at the entrance to my apartment, cursing myself for not shutting the door after my landlord came in.

"Who are you exactly? And what do you think you're doing in my apartment, making rude accusations?" My patience for all of this is wearing really thin, so when the man smirks, my blood pushes past the boiling point.

He walks fully into the kitchen where my landlord and I are sitting. "Leo Thomas, the neighbor who's been making the complaints. I've come by a few times, but you either haven't been here or are just choosing not to answer the door."

I don't really have anything to say to that, because it's true, unless someone is fairly insistent like my landlord, I don't really open the door.

"Perhaps you just haven't been trying enough. Either way, I don't have any kind of problem, and I'd appreciate it if you'd stop making false reports and get the hell out of here."

My landlord stands, finally making some kind of action in the exchange. "Well, I got my rent, so beyond that, I don't really care. You two know each other now, so work things out. And Mr. Thomas, do make actual contact with someone about an issue before you come to me again, understood?"

My neighbor nods, and the landlord takes his leave.

"So," the neighbor, Leo, says, taking the landlord's vacated seat, "What's your name, weirdo?"