All that winter my apartment was a rocking boat. I decided to slip notes underneath the doors of my disputing neighbours. I let them all know, anonymously, whose sides I was on. My choices were random, but I felt like taking some sort of an action. Later that night I answered loud knocking on my door. A big man with tattoos up his neck and a shaved head stood next to a slender young woman with frizzy hair and gentle blue eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy did you take his side?\u201d she asked, shaking her head in disgust.<\/p>\n
I shrugged.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome over for a beer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
We sat down in their dark, smoky apartment. A video game left on pause was our fireplace. The beer was nonexistent. She began first.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always going out with his buddies at night, spending too much money. He sold the car\u2014it was my car! The only time he\u2019s around here is when his children from his last marriage come over or when he\u2019s jamming with his buddies. Urine on the toilet seat\u2014every day!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, I\u2019m not really a counsellor,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUrine on the toilet seat! That\u2019s as good as it gets. I\u2019m a wise man.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really like the late-night jam sessions either,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never had a noise complaint,\u201d he said, defensively.<\/p>\n
\u201cI complained to the caretaker but gave up,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t you just knock on my door?\u201d he asked with an ironic smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cParanoia,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen him talking to people who aren\u2019t there\u2014he\u2019s crazy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy do you want my help then?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need someone with a distorted view of reality to help us with our relationship,\u201d she said, rolling her eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about my side?\u201d he asked. \u201cI work all day and have certain relationship privileges.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s it?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYep,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou got to cut out the late-night jam sessions… you should spend time with your wife instead. Oh yeah, and stand close\u2014it\u2019s farther than you think!\u201d<\/p>\n
Silence.<\/p>\n
I returned to my apartment. It wasn\u2019t long until something crashed against my wall and they resumed their fight. I decided to leave. I trudged through the snow to a nearby theatre. I bought my ticket and waited. I hadn\u2019t had the presence of mind to bring a book so I stared into nothingness like a criminal. Someone kept kicking the back of my seat through the stupid movie and I couldn\u2019t convince myself it was because of the cramped seats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
All that winter my apartment was a rocking boat. I decided to slip notes underneath the doors of my disputing neighbours. I let them all know, anonymously, whose sides I was on. My choices were random, but I felt like taking some sort of an action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":21017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[3703,105,3281],"class_list":["post-20465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","tag-dark-humour","tag-relationships","tag-winter","writer-marshall-bood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20465"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21018,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20465\/revisions\/21018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}