The Last Night in the House
Boxes are piled up in the room around me; the packing is more or less complete and ready for tomorrow. The bed has been disassembled and the mattress and box springs lie directly on the floor in place for one final night’s sleep before they are loaded up onto a moving truck in the morning. This will be the last night living in this house and very soon it will likely be the last time I’ll ever set foot here at all. It’s getting late and I’ve been busy all day preparing. I am feeling exhausted; I will need the sleep. It’s not going to be any less busy or exhausting tomorrow.
As I lie down to go to sleep, I can hear my neighbors. No, they are not so loud that it’s keeping me awake, not the source of any annoyance or frustration; still I can’t help but hear them. I can hear them talking and laughing; perhaps they have company, perhaps they are merely enjoying their own company, together as a family—I can’t say. What they are talking about, laughing about, I can’t say either; I can make out the general tone and contour of their voices clear enough but not the content. There’s a pleasantness and warmth. Is that what it is that entrances me? So I lie there, resting my body and mind, and listen, passively absorbing the sounds of life.
I have only once before ever spoken to my neighbors; they had come over not so many days after moving in to talk about a stray cat that had come around to both our houses. It’s not that I had no interest in talking to them further or any desire to avoid them—they seem and seemed perfectly pleasant—but I am not terribly sociable and do not often make the effort to get to know people. Whatever chance we had to become better acquainted with each other, the reality is we didn’t, that now we’ve come to the end of the opportunity and that’s simply how it is. It can’t be helped.
I lie there and just listen—just listen to the sounds of camaraderie next door—listen to the sounds of my neighbors going about their lives—to the sounds of my fellow human beings—to the sounds—to them. Soon, I will fall asleep, but not yet. Not yet. Tomorrow all of this will be lost, I will be gone, and I will never hear them again.