“Don’t arch your backs, keep them straight,” I hear Aida instruct from the living room. “More than halfway there, just ten seconds.” She’s in front of her laptop, propped up against the sofa pillows, leading an online home workout session. She keeps time with her phone and is recording the session with mine. She’s in socks, jumping up and down on the thin floor and even thinner mat that separates her feet from the neighbors’ heads below. I hear her from the bedroom, where I’m sitting against my pillows, beating my laptop in furious efficiency.
I wonder if the downstairs neighbors can hear as well?
I laugh.
You see, the downstairs neighbors share a wall with our building’s gym – and I use the word “wall” here generously… indeed, for all walls in this apartment complex. They walked in on me once while I was working on my biceps, asked me to place the weights gently on the floor if I could (what?). A few days later, I noticed a WiFi named “STOP SLAMMING WEIGHTS!” and “STOP SLAMMING WEIGHTS-5G” in the list of WiFi that came up on my laptop. I wondered if it was them? Anyway, you see, the gym in our building was closed a couple weeks ago due to COVID-19, and maybe I heard our downstairs neighbors let out a feeble shriek of joy when the management sent that email about the gym closing. The silver lining in each cloud, they thought, no more slamming weights for a while.
So when I hear Aida doing knee-ups in the next room, I can’t help but allow an innocently wicked, wry smile to unforcedly form across my face, wondering what the downstairs neighbors are going through.
Our unit is also not immune to the wandering noises of the ghosts that live within these walls, or the humans that live across from them. As I type in these words, I can distinctly make out my upstairs neighbor walking from the kitchen toward the balcony door back toward the kitchen, as if pacing the floor on some important business of urgent significance in the heat of these turbulent times.
I’ve come to accept it. After all, we are often redeemed in the same way that we have transgressed.
I check my list of WiFi again. I can’t find the weight-slamming connection. Instead, I see a new one:
Chronicles 