A letter to my neighbours

Dear Neighbours,

We live at number 12, a ground floor flat that makes you and us share a common wall. On our side, it is a neat magnolia surface on which a large photo of my sister warmly wrapped up in her scarf and hood yet standing bare feet in the cold April north sea guards our sleep. Although you are probably not aware of it, on our side that wall is a bedroom wall. On your side we have found out, it is a kitchen wall. My guess would be that it is a storage area, and I suspect it hosts a dishwasher too.

Have you ever tried to picture the space as it really is ? Forget about the visual barrier we create and represent yourself that actual square meter across both our flats. We are tucked in and curled up comfortably in bed, nested in our brand new king size duvet thanks to which my bum doesn’t get exposed to the chill anymore, soundly sleeping already when suddenly at half past eleven or preferably midnight, you come and happily scrape the remains of a dirty dish at our faces. In that square meter, when I stretch my arm from under the duvet I can reach your trousers and give them a nudge to attract your attention because I’m too sleepy to speak and beg you to please stop with the racket.

I am puzzled at how quiet you can be all evening, until that cleaning surge possesses you in that consistent half hour gap. An hour later comes the clinging of the fork dance, rhythmed by the bouncing of the doors and the banging of the drawers. Together they terrify me and I wake up in panic, my heart pounding as if someone was ripping it off my ribcage. Yes, that creepy shaman from Indiana Jones. That’s exactly how your nightly kitchen tidying cessions make me feel.

I don’t want to sound pushy; you have the freedom to live as you wish in your personal space after all and surely we do have our own annoying habits too, but please dear neighbours, do you think you could find some other moment to take care of the dishes?

Kind regards,