The Dead Tenants

The movie that Moe gave him does, actually, have German subtitles, and he’s watching it with them on. It’s a thing of logic, really, since he cannot understand Japanese at all. It’s not lacking in plot, truly, but rather the plot is so used up that it’s terribly predictable. Ramiel does agree that the main actor more than makes up for it, what with his looks and what with his acting. Neither is very hard on the eyes.

He’s got himself curled up under the blanket, metal blinds shut and two empty cups of coffee lined up on the coffee table (the third, half-full, is in his hand, still steaming). He doesn’t expect a visit – tonight is Sunday. It’s the little me day that they’ve introduced, and it’s the mandatory alone time that they all have. A little rest from each other, that’s what they’ve called it. Really, it’s everything that Ramiel needs; just a little bit time to think without the outside influence.

The others are out on their own business, too – he hasn’t seen them anywhere today, not except for Moe, whose turn it was to clean up the debris outside in the morning.

At first, it’s a mere speck of dust dancing in front of his eyes, he tells himself, because when he blinks, it goes away. He does so several times, and he even pauses the movie. He must be too tired to watch it and, really, he’s not sure when he’s slept the last time. It must’ve been five, six days? It could’ve been more, but it could’ve been less, too. He’s not good with managing his sleep just yet, and he must’ve overworked himself.

Still, he has maybe twenty minutes left to watch, and he doesn’t want to leave them for another day. He wouldn’t miss or forget anything – it just made him feel slightly uneasy, leaving things unfinished like that. So, he turns the TV back on and lays back, his back sinking into the decorative pillows and he nearly feels them sucking the tiredness out of his bones. He might just fall asleep here, right after he finishes the movie.

Then he sees it again – the black speck. He blinks, but this time it doesn’t go away. It clings to his door instead and now that he looks at it closer, it looks liquid. He gets up and pauses the movie, then gets his slippers on. He’s pretty sure nobody would mind him in his pyjamas – Charlie walks around half-naked all the time and Moe spends more time in her sleeping clothes than she doesn’t – but he’s still glad he’s not wearing them.

Slowly, he approaches the door, and he must look somewhat comical, with his hand stretched out before him. He’s extended it towards the mass and, when it touches it, it doesn’t look like liquid anymore. It looks like smoke and it crawls up his arm. There’s goose flesh raising on his hand, not because it’s too hot or too cold, but because it doesn’t feel like anything. He doesn’t feel anything, he can just see it move.

He must be going crazy.

Ramiel shakes his head, pulls his hands back and pushes his hair back and out of his face. For a moment, he thinks about how it’s gotten longer than it should’ve, but then the black, weightless air attaches itself for his door handle and he forgets all about golden hair and well-kept looks. When he touches the handle the smoke disappears and when he opens the door, he sees a person he’s never seen before.

He thinks her to be Moe at first, or perhaps Natasha, if only she weren’t so short and so small. It can’t be Darling either, because his hair is lighter than hers. She turns around when she hears the door creak and, for a moment, she looks scared, before her face falls into the impassive mask.

“May I help you?” If the black smoke is there, he cannot see it. The light in the hallway is off. It wouldn’t be on until morning, too; he put it out and he was planning on turning it back on, too.

“Perhaps.” The woman’s speech is slightly accented. If the weight of his heart was a stone, it hadn’t been removed, but only slightly chipped at the edges. He doesn’t know her face – until now, he hasn’t known it – but he’s heard her voice before. “Are you a tenant?”

“Yes. Hi. Hi, how are you doing?” What does he call her? What does he say? Hello, Zero? It doesn’t sound really appropriate to call a woman by her number. “I’m Ramiel. I’m your neighbour.” That sounds so unreal right now. (Like dying. It sounds like dying and living after death, but oh well.)

“Then you can help me.” She doesn’t move his eyes from him. They’re black, too, and her hair as well. She looks like she’s going to sink into the shadow. When she moves to the side slightly, the white rectangle breaks the darkness of the hallway. It takes him a moment to realise that it’s one of the posters – the one that said GRAYSTORMS SURGERIES, but this one he hadn’t seen before, and he’s not sure how he missed it: the androgynous face looking forward, with black tendrils and wires coming out of the head. This one’s not bald, but perhaps it would’ve looked better if it was. “Did you put this here?”

She doesn’t sound angry. She sounds like the joke’s been played on her and like she’s ready to get even. He would’ve preferred her rage.

“No. We’ve come across more that are similar, but—this is the first time I’m seeing it.” It’s creepy. Simon was right. There’s no need to look at them more than necessary. This one doesn’t even have the fine print. Just that—the large white GRAYSTORMS SURGERIES. The name sounds familiar, but he cannot remember where he’s heard it. Perhaps this is only meant to haunt him, and not the others, even though the woman seems to be unsettled, too. “We did find more of them outside, but none were like this one.”

There must be something in his voice, or perhaps on his face, that gives his honesty away. The woman nods and although she is still visibly tense, it is not in the same way it had been before.

“I will remove it.” She says and then she does that – a quick stretch of the hand and the paper comes off the metal plate he’s used to seal the window. “Outside where? Outside in the city?”

“Yes.” He’s more relaxed now, too, and he pushes his back against the wall and then slides down. She looks small from beneath, too. “Near stadium, right by the concert hall. It’s right on the outskirts off—of the main centre, I’d say.” He’s not sure how to explain where that is to her. His head hurts. There’s something black around his ankles but he doesn’t feel it through his jeans so he doesn’t touch it.

“I know what the town looks like. I’ve been there before, although only once.” She sounds like she’s being forced into conversation with him. She looks uncomfortable, too – with her hands in front of herself, in a silly teddy bear-patterned PJs and dark hair curling around her face. She doesn’t look dangerous anymore. She looks like she’s going to fall asleep.

Charlie knows her name. He’s seen her before and he knows who she is.

“I’ve only been once, too.” He’s smiling when he says it and the smile is bright and more than honest. The black smoke tendrils move from his ankles when he lets out a small chuckle. Maybe he’s making them up. “What’s your name?” He doesn’t add Zero at the end of his sentence even though his tongue stings for him to, because then he would sound demanding. He’s merely curious.

The woman seems pondering for a moment, but then she drops the crumpled shiny ad from her hand and sits down on it. She’s not even remotely close to Ramiel, but she’s sitting across him. He never noticed that they had a carpet. He could’ve sworn it wasn’t there the day he arrived, but he’s not sure when exactly it’d become a part of their floor.

“I forgot what you were called.” She probably wasn’t even listening, large black eyes glued to the image that was hung on the metal plate. Ramiel’s not offended, and he offers his first name again. He’s pretty sure this is the second, or even the third time he’s introducing himself to her. “It sounds holy.”

“It’s an angel.” He gets that question a lot. He remembers how Moe guessed on the first try, too.

The woman nods, movement sharp, and then she only looks at him. It’s slightly unsettling, but he takes the moment of peace and quiet to soak her appearance in. He’s probably not going to get her name and this is probably going to be the last time he sees her. He might try bribing her with latte, but what for? He doesn’t even know what they would talk about, and while it would be easier to have six people to talk to rather than five, he’s not sure if he’d even be able to handle her. Simon and Darling are quite enough as it is.

She’s uncomfortable. She must be, because she’s not taking her eyes off of him and it takes him a minute too long to figure out it’s because she doesn’t trust him.

He doesn’t truly blame her.

“I won’t be keeping you.” His back’s somewhat stiff, and he’s not sure for how long he’s been sitting. He is not going to finish the movie. He’s going straight to bed, as soon as he sees his neighbour off. “Surely you have better things to be doing than hanging out with me.”

The woman nods, wordlessly, and gets up. She stands before him, then leans towards him a bit, face neutral. She leans back a second later and then she’s gone; the thud of the closing door is the only thing indicating that she was there at all. He laughs slightly, to himself, because he didn’t realise immediately that she was saying goodbye to him. He didn’t realise she was bowing.

There’s another click, though – the door of the apartment 9 opens up only slightly.

“Zero, Ramiel.” She says, voice as thick as ever. “The name is still Zero.” But it might not always be. He doesn’t want to be optimistic about this, but... he is. When she leaves, this time it is final.

He must’ve made up the smoke, too, and he thinks that he’s been too tired. He’ll talk to Moe tomorrow – his entire eye is now purple and maybe he’s seeing things because of it, too. His shadow is long and leaning towards the blind end of the hallway when he gets up – towards the apartment number 9. He looks to the staircase and sees that the light is on in the hallway. Simon must’ve forgotten it the previous evening.

He did not notice it before.