“Poor kid, she shouldn’t have died so young.”
The murmurs of apathy were suffocating him. Breathless agreements swarmed into one big grey mess. Everyone was blending into each other, creating a wormhole which sucked away genuine feelings and thoughts, only leaving behind fake reactions and forced crying.
“...Yeah, especially the way she died… how unfortunate.”
He seemed to be the only one who disagreed. She deserved to have her picture splashed in front of the news, like an actress who had a hit role in an award-winning movie and then descended into oblivion soon after. What did these people know anyway? In her final days and moments leading to her death, he had been the only one that had been there for her. No one had talked to her,
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She waved back at the barista, ordered a cup of coffee and sat down at her favourite spot by the corner. From there she could watch all the people going in and out and moving around. She scourged for a pen and notebook in her messenger bag and leaned back comfortably. She aimed to finish at least another page for her paper tonight. For some reason, she couldn’t get her neighbours out of her mind. They had been increasingly aggressive and strange lately. The box left on her front door and their seemingly daily fights had just been the start of it. She always had a feeling of being watched, like she was in a strange documentary of some sort.
A loud clang lifted her from the trance. She looked up to see the server apologising to a man with a large coat. Oh, it was her neighbour. She had actually never talked to either of them before, probably due to avoidance from both parties. She wasn’t clear as to where her sudden boost of confidence came from as she stood up and walked over to him, but it was definitely time to introduce herself and confront them about the noise.
“Hey, I’m Jo. Your neighbour?” She gave a weak smile, deciding against an handshake after glancing at what he was wearing.
The wingy old man stared at her with wide eyes. He was engulfed in a dirty brown diaper-like coat and knitted hat. His matted black hair and drooped shoulders shifted as he answered her quietly with a raspy low voice. “Ah...that girl from the floor