by Jason Fisk

Joe’s one-bed­room apart­ment was his sanc­tu­ary. It al­ways smelled of fresh cof­fee and was clean, and bright, and free of clut­ter. He was sur­round­ed by his books, and his records, and his framed con­cert posters. He had achieved a cer­tain aes­thet­ic that pleased his soul. He had cre­at­ed a place to heal. It was a pen­du­lum-swing re­ac­tion to his life be­fore the di­vorce. It was all his. His ideas and his ways of do­ing things, and the ideas hadn’t been chal­lenged or re­ject­ed. There was no one to re­ject them. 

There was one mi­nor draw­back to his peace, though. He no­ticed it one night when he walked out of his bed­room in­to the yel­low glow of the ever-vig­i­lant kitchen coun­ter­top light. Its ra­di­ance gen­tly cov­ered every­thing like a fresh coat of snow. It was then that he no­ticed it — the harsh flu­o­res­cent light that pierced through the peep­hole in his door. It was com­ing from the pub­lic hall­way on the oth­er side. The se­vere light re­mind­ed him of the cal­lous­ness that ex­ist­ed be­yond his door. He grabbed a piece of duct tape and cov­ered the hole. He sat down at his com­put­er and or­dered a prop­er cov­er for the peep­hole. Prob­lem solved. 

One day, when Joe got home from work, he saw the front door of the three-sto­ry apart­ment build­ing propped open with a dumb­bell, and there was a small mov­ing truck filled with a couch, a bed, and a dis­pro­por­tion­ate amount of ex­er­cise equip­ment. He won­dered who was mov­ing in, and what apart­ment they were mov­ing in­to, and then he saw him; the own­er of the ex­er­cise equip­ment opened the truck door and stepped out. He was taller than the av­er­age man. He was bet­ter look­ing than the av­er­age man, and his clothes clung to his ro­bust mus­cu­la­ture in all the right places. This mag­nif­i­cent-look­ing man took Joe off guard. 

“Hi,” the man said, and of­fered his per­fect­ly man­i­cured hand to Joe. Joe grabbed it. The man’s grasp was per­fect. Not too strong. Not too weak. 

“Do you live here?” the man asked. 

“Yeah,” Joe said. His hand was still be­ing held by the man when he turned and point­ed to his bal­cony. “Right up there.” 

“I think I live right above you, then,” he said, point­ing to the bal­cony above Joe’s. “I’m Sebastian.” 

“I’m Joe,” he said, re­leas­ing his hand from the man’s grip. “It’s a good place to live. Good luck with your move.” 

“Thanks,” Se­bas­t­ian said. 

That night, Joe was two glass­es of caber­net sauvi­gnon and an ed­i­ble in­to his Sun­day evening view­ing of his fa­vorite TV show when he heard a loud thud from the apart­ment above. He jumped and spilled his wine on the carpet. 

“God damn it,” he said and went to the laun­dry room, got the stain re­mover, and start­ed scrub­bing. By the time he got the stain out, the wine had tak­en the ed­i­ble by the hand, and they were hap­pi­ly skip­ping through his con­scious­ness to­geth­er. His an­noy­ance was nonex­is­tent. I’ll cut him some slack, he thought. He just moved in. 

Two days lat­er, Joe was walk­ing up the stairs to his apart­ment, and he heard Sebastian’s voice boom­ing from the floor above. Judg­ing by the one-sided na­ture of the con­ver­sa­tion, Joe as­sumed he was on the phone, and then he saw Sebastian’s enor­mous shad­ow bounc­ing down the wall. Se­bas­t­ian fol­lowed close be­hind and took al­most the en­tire stair­way up with his vast, mus­cu­lar body. Joe smelled co­conut oil, a scent that he as­so­ci­at­ed with the tan­ning and swim­ming pools of his youth. He stood to the side to let Se­bas­t­ian pass. 

“Hey,” Joe said and nodded. 

Se­bas­t­ian didn’t ac­knowl­edge him. He kept talk­ing on the phone. His voice el­e­vat­ed and intense. 

Busy guy, Joe thought. Or just an asshole? 

As the nights stretched in­to weeks, Joe heard crash­ing sounds com­ing from Sebastian’s apart­ment al­most every night. There was boom af­ter crash af­ter thud af­ter thump up­stairs. He sus­pect­ed that Se­bas­t­ian was weightlift­ing and drop­ping the weights on the hard­wood floor. The sounds were so loud and so fu­ri­ous and so in­tense that he feared some­thing was go­ing to fall through the floor above him. He cov­ered his head every time he heard the crash­ing and boom­ing. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly, he would pound the ceil­ing with a broom han­dle, but to no avail. 

One sun­ny Sun­day af­ter­noon, Joe was sit­ting on his bal­cony, sip­ping iced cof­fee and read­ing when he saw Se­bas­t­ian walk­ing his white garbage bag to the dump­ster. Put a shirt on, you ar­ro­gant prick, he thought.

“Good af­ter­noon,” Se­bas­t­ian called up to Joe. 

“Hey, how ya do­ing?” Joe replied. 

“Great. It’s a beau­ti­ful day. I was just head­ing to the gym,” he said, as if Joe cared. 

“Oh. Have fun with that,” Joe called down. 

“Do you work out?” Se­bas­t­ian asked. 

“Nope. Not my scene,” Joe said. 

“You should,” he said. He watched Joe’s face. “I didn’t mean to of­fend. It’s just that I do per­son­al train­ing on the side,” he said. “I’d be more than hap­py to take you on as a client. I’d cut you a deal.”

“Well, that’s very gen­er­ous of you. Thanks for the of­fer,” Joe said. 

“Think about it. Of­fer stands,” Se­bas­t­ian said. 

“Thanks.” Joe sipped his coffee. 

Se­bas­t­ian dis­ap­peared in­to the building. 

What a colos­sal douche, Joe thought. 

It was at 11:07 on a Tues­day night when Joe was star­tled awake by a crash. He’d had enough. He put on his house slip­pers and his bathrobe and marched up­stairs to Sebastian’s door. 

Joe knocked on the door. He was proud of how mea­sured the knock was. Not too strong. Not too weak. 

He wait­ed.  

Noth­ing. 

I know you’re in there, he thought.He strained to hear some­thing but couldn’t hear anything. 

He knocked again. This time it was less measured. 

Noth­ing again. 

He knocked even loud­er a third time and lis­tened close­ly for any sounds em­a­nat­ing from the oth­er side of the door. 

Noth­ing. 

He left. Fury fu­eled each step of his de­scent of the stairs. He stomped back to his apart­ment. He poured a glass of wine and took an ed­i­ble. He mut­ed the TV, sat on his couch, and lis­tened care­ful­ly to see if he could hear Se­bas­t­ian mov­ing around up there. He scoot­ed to the edge of his couch, hunched over his cof­fee ta­ble, ready to leap in­to ac­tion at the slight­est sound from above, but he didn’t hear any­thing. Af­ter the bot­tle of wine had been drained and the ed­i­ble kicked in, Joe fell asleep. 

When he woke up the next day, the first thing he did was reach for his com­put­er, some­thing his ex-wife hat­ed and al­ways com­plained about when they were married. 

“Don’t you think you should kiss your wife be­fore you get on­line?” she would al­ways ask. 

When he opened his email, he saw a let­ter from the apart­ment build­ing management: 

Sub­ject: Noise Com­plaint — Re­quest for Im­me­di­ate Attention

Dear Joe Loathman,

We are writ­ing to for­mal­ly no­ti­fy you of a noise dis­tur­bance com­plaint that has been re­port­ed by one or more neigh­bor­ing res­i­dents. Specif­i­cal­ly, the com­plaint in­volves ex­ces­sive vol­ume of mu­sic and/or TV sounds, oc­cur­ring dur­ing late evening hours be­tween 10:00 PM and 2:00 AM.

Please be re­mind­ed that un­der the terms of your lease/rules and reg­u­la­tions, all res­i­dents are ex­pect­ed to main­tain a rea­son­able noise lev­el at all times, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing qui­et hours, (10:00 PM to 7:00 AM). Ex­ces­sive or re­peat­ed noise that dis­turbs oth­ers is a vi­o­la­tion of build­ing pol­i­cy and may re­quire fur­ther action.

We ask that you take im­me­di­ate steps to min­i­mize noise and be mind­ful of your neigh­bors. Our goal is to main­tain a peace­ful and re­spect­ful liv­ing en­vi­ron­ment for all residents.

If you have any ques­tions or be­lieve this no­tice was sent in er­ror, please con­tact the man­age­ment of­fice at 847−555−3117. We ap­pre­ci­ate your prompt at­ten­tion to this matter.

Sin­cere­ly,
Dev­ina Dra­mane
Prop­er­ty Man­ag­er
Black­hawk Prop­er­ty Management

He just knew it was Se­bas­t­ian. He was sure of it. What a prick! he thought. 

One night, the rau­cous sound from above was so vi­o­lent that it woke him up from a deep slum­ber. The predica­ment stressed Joe out so much that his teeth hurt from clench­ing his jaw so tight­ly. Should I call the po­lice? Should I file a com­plaint with man­age­ment? Should I go up­stairs and knock on his door? He froze with in­de­ci­sion. He went on­line and or­dered a sound ma­chine, hop­ing to drown out the com­mo­tion. He even paid more for ex­pe­dit­ed ship­ping than the ma­chine cost. 

When the sound ma­chine ar­rived the next day, he tore the box open and rushed to plug it in be­side his bed. He pressed all the but­tons and lis­tened to all the op­tions. He even­tu­al­ly de­cid­ed against the rain sound be­cause it made him want to pee. Through his de­duc­tive process, he de­cid­ed that the white-noise sound suit­ed him best. That night, he ea­ger­ly went about his night­time rou­tine and climbed in­to his soft bed. He turned on the ma­chine and found a suit­able vol­ume. He pulled his thick down com­forter over his body and shut his eyes. He slept…

Un­til the bang­ing woke him up at 3:37 in the morn­ing. He was an­noyed but want­ed to be­lieve that he’d found a suit­able so­lu­tion for his prob­lem in the sound ma­chine; he just need­ed to turn up the vol­ume, so that’s what he did. He turned up the vol­ume and rolled back over. As much as he didn’t want to, he strained his ears to see if he could hear any­thing. He couldn’t. Con­fi­dent that his so­lu­tion worked, he drift­ed back to sleep. 

Ear­ly the next morn­ing, Joe woke up feel­ing vic­to­ri­ous and re­freshed. He sat down in front of the tele­vi­sion, propped his feet on the cof­fee ta­ble, turned on the news, and sipped his warm cup of cof­fee. He al­ways al­lowed him­self time to wake up and re­lax in the morn­ing be­fore he had to get ready for work. 

Just then, there was a loud crash­ing sound, and the ceil­ing ex­plod­ed in­to the mid­dle of Joe’s liv­ing room. Dry­wall fell on­to his floor in chunks, and white dust filled the air. Joe coughed as he leaned for­ward and put his cof­fee on the ta­ble. He looked up and saw a leg stick­ing through the ceil­ing. It was a bare, mus­cu­lar leg, just dan­gling there. 

“What the fuck?” Joe asked, look­ing at the dan­gling leg. He wait­ed for Se­bas­t­ian to re­trieve his leg… for it to re­coil back up in­to the ceil­ing, back in­to his apart­ment, but it didn’t. 

“Are you okay?” he called up to the leg as he walked to the cen­ter of the room. His head bent way back as he walked around, surveying. 

“Hey, can you hear me?” he yelled up to the hole. There was no re­sponse. The leg didn’t move. He got the broom from the pantry and thought about pok­ing it, but that didn’t feel right, so he put the broom away. 

He sat back down on the couch and looked up at the leg. 

Who do I call? Should I go up there and check on him? Should I call the po­lice?  

He got up from the couch, stepped in­to his slip­pers, and walked out in­to the harsh­ly lit hall­way. He felt a chill, so he went back in­to his apart­ment and put on a hood­ie. He re­turned to the hall­way and climbed the stairs two at a time. When he came to Sebastian’s door, he knocked. He wait­ed and lis­tened. No one an­swered. He knocked again, this time he put his ear against the door. He didn’t hear any­thing. He grabbed the door­knob and twist­ed. It was locked. He turned and de­scend­ed the stairs. When he got back to his apart­ment, he walked around the leg to see if it had changed po­si­tion as a re­sult of his knock­ing. It hadn’t, but he did no­tice a liq­uid streak run­ning through the dry­wall dust on the naked leg. He looked at the car­pet be­neath. It was wet. 

“Moth­er fuck­er!” he yelled. “You peed on my car­pet.” He hur­ried to his sink and pulled out the plas­tic tub that he had hand-washed his dish­es in and placed it un­der Sebastian’s leg. “Moth­er fuck­er!” he said again. “You’d bet­ter pay for all of this,” he called up to the leg and shook his fist. 

Out of the cor­ner of his eye, he saw the green oven-clock num­bers glow­ing at him, telling him that he’d be late for work if he didn’t get ready soon. Do I even go to work to­day? he won­dered. He de­cid­ed to get ready just in case the fu­ture him de­cid­ed that go­ing to work was his best op­tion. He show­ered, went about his morn­ing rit­u­als, and got dressed. He was so in­to his morn­ing rou­tine that it swept him out the door and to work with­out a thought of the naked leg pro­trud­ing from his ceiling. 

With the help of his busy job, he man­aged to put the leg out of his mind all day. It wasn’t un­til he walked up the stairs to his apart­ment that im­ages of the urine-streaked leg came back to him. 

Fuck! he thought. I hope it’s gone. 

He opened the door and held his breath. The leg was still there. 

“Damn it,” he said and threw his work­bag on the couch. He pulled out his com­put­er, made a reser­va­tion at the lo­cal ho­tel for two days, packed a bag, and sat back down. He opened his com­put­er and filled out a main­te­nance re­quest through the hous­ing management’s web­site. He checked the box al­low­ing the main­te­nance per­son to en­ter his apart­ment while he wasn’t there, and in the ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion sec­tion, he wrote: There’s a leg com­ing through my ceiling. 

He closed the com­put­er and locked his door be­hind him.

Filed under Fiction on October 17th, 2025

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