Story #44: Thunder

There are twelve apartments in my building, four on each floor, separated by a hallway in one direction and the central staircase in the other direction. This means that when I go out my front door (oh yes, I have a back door to you see, that is how fancy I am now) I see directly in front of me my neighbors' front door. Our apartments are the mirror image of each other. Then there is an apartment above me and also below me, exact same floor plan. The people who live in these three apartments are the ones that feel most like my neighbors, because I interact with them the most. I see the people on the other side of the staircase too, sometimes, but only up in the laundry room or taking their bikes outside. I don't really know what's going on with them on a day-to-day basis.

With my upstairs, downstairs, and across-the-hall neighbors it is different though. I can smell the tantalizing dinners they cook, listen as their children practice for school plays, see the light slicing out from underneath their door at night. It feels more connected, somehow, and that connection of course generates more stories.

The man who lives upstairs, given to playing folk music and sea chanties throughout the day, has recently taken on a new audio campaign. I presume it is to help him sleep, but I have not asked and so I cannot be sure. I first noticed this new soundtrack to his life on Sunday night of last week, just having gotten home from lying about in the park at the end of my block (but, not lying about in that park the way Kelly has been recently) and ready to cool down a bit after the first truly hot spring day in the East Bay. The sun was sinking behind the city skyline as I sat down on my couch with a glass of lemonade, ready for a rest after working hard all day pre-park. Just as I was getting settled I heard the most unexpected sound. Thunder?!

I looked out the window up at the darkening sky with a mixture of surprise and delight. One of the two things I miss most about Midwestern life is the warm-weather thunderstorms, the sky filling with clouds and lightning, the thick heavy air filling with rain. Could it be that a springtime deluge was about to unleash itself just outside my picture window? Um, no...not at all. The sky was inky but clear and the sprinkling of stars shining stronger than the city lights below began to gleam across the sky. What WAS that noise?

By now you have guessed, perhaps, that it was my upstairs neighbor. Beginning on Sunday and continuing every night this week, it thunders upstairs. All night long. It starts at about 11 p.m. and this morning when I woke up at 9 it was still going strong. I must say it is very tranquil, just kind of incongruous when you're getting dressed and ready for the Grand Lake Farmers' Market on a sunny Saturday morning and it's thundering upstairs.