吀栀e Apartment 52 Above Mine Elsa Kaariainen Moving to the outskirts of the city was the last option to attain a stable job for myself. I had found a listing for an apartment in a building with many affordable rooms, which also had many others under reconstruction, a suitable factor for my current state of life. I brought all my remaining furniture and belongings to the apartment, including just enough space for my writing desk and my full-sized bed on its open 昀氀oor. The 昀椀rst month living in my new home was bland, as was the cloudy weather outside that desperately tried but failed to bring light in through the window. Every morning I’d use my old coffee machine, which I hoped would one day master its taste, but otherwise what it produced was bitter or diluted. The afternoons I spent sitting at my desk, going through and editing the documents with hundreds of meaningless words. In the evenings, as I was tired of seeing more words, I abandoned my book in the corner and stared at the television instead. Such similar days repeated with the fault of my own rigidity. There was one particular day however, when I 昀椀rst heard a noise from the apartment above mine. I was reading a document when a ball began bouncing against the 昀氀oor accompanied by a child’s giggle and the clicking nails of a barking dog. For about a week, I heard the child playing around with the ball and the dog, scolded by her strict mother. Then the noises stopped. The week that proceeded was silent, and I assumed they had gone on vacation until the sound of two unrecognizable voices echoed in that apartment. I soon concluded they might be a young couple. The young couple only stayed in the apartment for a week, and their spirited voices went from plenty of laughter to shouting. Once again, I was left alone in silence, which provoked every nerve of my confusion. I refused to continue to listen to those noises, but I was curious to know who resided there.