It started the first week I moved in, and I tried to ignore it.
I’m not sure why I did, considering the amount of noise coming from the room next door was nothing short of ridiculous, but I guess I rationalised it with the fact that we were all moving in at different times, and maybe this guy was a little slower to unpack than the rest of us. That’s what it sounded like, anyway; boxesscraping and furniture banging and cupboards and draws opening and closing. I didn’t want to go over there in the first week of semester and ask about the noise; my guess was that doing so would fast track me into That Person status, and I wanted to give someone else a chance to fuck up first.
It quickly became difficult to rationalise. For a start, I had no idea who had so much stuff that they would be unpacking for three hours a night, every night, for a week. Secondly, I had no idea who would decide to start doing so at eleven at night. It was getting to the point where I couldn’t really talk myself out of being annoyed anymore, but still, I left it. Class hadn’t started yet, and besides, I never really got into bed before three in the morning. What did I care if someone wanted to rearrange their furniture for a few hours? No one else seemed to be bothered, and several nights a week, the banging was drowned out by the loud parties coming from various kitchens and floors anyway. I didn’t think that new college students were going to care too much about some banging while they were downing shot after shot in the kitchen – or at least, not the kind of banging I was hearing.
The night before classes started, it was becoming a little difficult to put up with. I was sitting at my desk, trying to make sense of the class numbers in the schedule and work out how they fitted into the time blocks, when I heard the banging distinctly move across the floor and to my wall. Once, twice, three times, there was a loud, echoing bang on the wall, and then silence.
I leaned back in my chair, frowning. That was a little bit more than I was willing to explain away, but what could I do? I stood up, took the one step to my bed and knelt on it, leaning over to listen at the wall. There was complete silence.
For a moment, I toyed with the idea that maybe the person had hurt themselves; what if he’d been banging against the wall to get my attention? I chewed on my bottom lip for a moment, trying to talk myself into (or out of) action, when I slowly began to hear shuffling footsteps from the other room. The more I listened, the more I realised the weirdo was pacing back and forth, over and over again, in his tiny box of a room.
I sighed and sat back, thinking to myself that at least I wasn’t going to have to put up with the banging while I tried to work out just where the hell I was going tomorrow morning. That I could deal with, though I made a note to talk to him next time I saw him in the kitchen, and just ask him what the deal was.
It didn’t hit me that there hadn’t been a first time I’d seen him, yet.
*
For the next couple of weeks, things were relatively normal. My neighbour managed to keep the noise down for the most part, and aside from the occasional outbreak of clattering from the room next to me, all was quiet. It started up again the third week of semester, once more with the constant noise starting late in the evening. This time, I made it to my door and had pulled it open, ready to go over and ask him what was up, when I stopped and considered to myself for a moment if I could really be bothered with the drama. After all, I was still up, and no one else in the hall had bothered to say anything yet. Would I just be getting a reputation as an asshole for no reason?
Still, curiosity left me hovering in the doorway. What the hell was there to do in such a small room that could leave someone making that much noise, so often?
I was still debating as to what to do when the bathroom door opened and my across-the-hall neighbour came out, in her pyjamas and fresh-faced. She looked at me, slightly alarmed, and I gave an awkward smile.
“Uh, hi.”
“Hello?” she asked, her pace slowing down as she approached. “Is something wrong?”
“No, ah – actually, out of interest, have you heard the noises from the guy in the room next to me?”
As I said the words, I realised they’d stopped. She looked at me for a moment longer, and then glanced at the door.
“Not really?” she said. “I mean, sometimes I’ve heard the occasional thump, which was kind of weird, but I just figured he was moving stuff around.”
“Huh.”
“I mean if he’s being really loud maybe ask him about it, but I haven’t heard anything.”
“All right. Thanks. Uh – one more thing. Have you actually seen him yet?”
She shrugged. “I saw through the crack as his door closed the first week we were here, but couldn’t make much out. I guess he just doesn’t really like hanging out.”
“Weird,” I said, and then I thanked her again, ducking back into my room and shutting the door, leaning my head against it as I locked it and cringing. “Great job,” I added to myself. “In your quest not to become the Asshole Flatmate, you’re now the Weird, Stares At People’s Doors Flatmate.”
I stayed up for another half hour, waiting to hear if the noises started again, but after spending the wait in silence, I went to bed.
*
Maybe it was because I’d actually been woken up, or maybe it was because I was feeling slightly ill and as a result, my patience had suffered, but the next time there was an extreme outbreak of noise was the time I went over there. I had been sleeping quite peacefully when three loud bangs right at the wall beside my head jerked me awake, and I decided right in that split second between waking and sleep that I had had enough. I stood up, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and stomped to my door. Within seconds, I was out in the hall.
I paused for a moment, involuntarily – the hallway was pitch black, the lights for some reason off, and it was icy cold. I frowned, shivering, and decided to use the fact that I wasn’t still in my warm bed as an excuse to hold onto the anger those bangs had awakened in me. I stepped the couple of feet up the hall to the next room, raised a fist, and before I could back out, rapped on the door.
No answer.
I knocked again.
There was a brief shuffling, and then silence
I sighed. It was too late for this, and I was too tired.
“All right, whatever,” I said, just loudly enough, as I turned back to my room. “But can you keep it down, please?”
He listened, for the rest of the night at least.
*
I like to think that people aren’t spiteful enough to take such rightful annoyance as an open declaration of war, but if living in college halls has taught me anything, it’s that there are a lot of assholes out there, and many of them congregate in college halls. It started again the very next night, except all of the loud, echoing bangs were right on my wall, consistently, over and over. I lasted about a minute before I was pretty damn pissed off.
“Shut up!”
I stood up, walking to the wall and slapping my hand on it. The walls were fairly thick, old concrete, and compared to the floor-shuddering thuds from the room next door, my slaps sounded pitiful. I even paused in my anger for long enough to consider just how he was even making those sounds, glancing around my room for possible objects with that effect, but found nothing.
The banging continued.
“Can you shut the fuck up?” I yelled, in the pause between bangs. Several more sounded out, and then there was silence. “What the fuck is your problem?” I added.
Silence.
And then, suddenly, three loud bangs at my door, strong enough to make the whole thing shake in its frame.
The only way to stop myself from shitting my pants was to clench my ass into a black hole.
I can’t explain why hearing those sounds on the door was that much more terrifying than hearing it on the wall, but for some reason it was, and every part of me was on edge for those next bangs.
They didn’t come.
I let breath out that I didn’t even know I was holding, and then, finally, annoyance took over. I crossed over to the door, pausing only slightly as I wrenched it open, finding the hallway empty, as I’d known it would be. Two seconds later and I was at his door, banging on it constantly this time, some part of me somewhere registering that again, there was no way a sound like that could be made on these doors. My knuckles rapped loudly but there certainly didn’t make the floor tremble with the noise, and after only a few seconds of knocking they were starting to hurt.
“I know you’re in there,” I yelled at the door. “Look, man, if you have a problem why don’t you just come say it?”
Nothing.
“Because honestly, I don’t see what you’re so pissy about, considering every fucking night you’re banging around, some nights for hours, and god knows what you’re doing in there but you have no right to come around harassing me because I came over to tell you to cool it.”
Still nothing. What a surprise.
“Just keep it down, all right? Keep it down and I’m willing to leave it as it is. But I swear to god, pull this shit again and I will report you.”
That got a reply, at least.
“Go ahead.”
I froze again, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. His voice didn’t sound anything like I’d expected it; it was too low, too crackly.
“Well, I will,” I said, though I could hear my anger had vanished from my voice, replaced with confusion.
“They won’t listen.”
“You could just, you know. Try not being loud as shit?” I asked.
“That’s not the worst thing I could do.”
“Fucking edgy,” I muttered, though for some reason I knew he had heard me, and the prickling at my neck increased and I quickly moved back to my room, locking the door behind me.
*
The asshole didn’t stop, and I ended up reporting it.
That’s kind of an understatement, really. What I should actually say is, two nights later the entire hall was woken up by banging loud enough to shake the floors and rattle the windows, and I stumbled to the door and pulled it open at the same time as the girl across the hall did. We stared at each other for a moment.
“You’re hearing that, right?” I asked, though I had to raise my voice to be heard.
“Only just,” she yelled back, rolling her eyes and looking at the door. “What is his problem?”
“I have no idea – what are you doing?”
“I’m going to go ask!” she replied, already stepping out of her room. Along the hall, more people were beginning to peer out.
“Don’t bother! Seriously, he’s an asshole. Let’s go downstairs, tell the concierge.”
I had expected a little resistance at the idea of bringing any kind of authority into it, but I was met with none. Evidently, everyone agreed that this was a step too far. The two of us left the hall and headed for the stairs with a backdrop of staring eyes and deafening noise.
Strangely, one floor below, at the concierge, we couldn’t hear anything. The two middle-aged guys on duty that night sat and listened to our joint report, with me contributing my own complaints dating back several weeks, and we were met with looks of confusion.
“You’re sure it’s from that room, mate?” one of them asked me.
“Definitely. I went over there. I talked to him through the door. He was a bit of a dick.”
“I’ve seen him go in a couple of times, as well,” my neighbour put in. “Well, I haven’t seen him, but I’ve seen the door closing.”
They glanced at each other.
“I’ll come check it out, I guess,” he eventually said, standing and coming around the desk. “You’re absolutely sure?”
“Come hear for yourself,” I said, privately hoping the guy wouldn’t have quit this time.
For a moment I thought he had, as the staircase was silent, but as soon as we entered our floor, the banging was there, clear as day. The porter frowned, muttering to himself as he patted his pocket. I heard a jingle of keys. Within a minute we were in the flat, had listened to the banging for several undeniable seconds, and the porter had knocked on the door.
“Porter! Can I have a word?”
The banging continued.
“If you don’t open the door, I am authorised to open it.”
It was clear the asshole wasn’t going to listen, so within another few seconds, the porter had pulled out the keychain, located the master key, and unlocked the door.
It swung open, and the noise stopped, leaving a silence that was far too heavy. Cold air rushed out and bit at my skin. I leaned over to look as he flicked the light on.
The room was completely empty. No furniture, no bedding. Stripped bare.
*
According to the porters, the room hadn’t been lived in for two years. No real reason, just there hadn’t been enough people each year and the way they allocated rooms would leave that one empty. He couldn’t remember much about the guy that had lived there before, just that – as I’d suspected – he had been a bit difficult to live with. The police were called, in fear of squatters, seems I was adamant I’d spoken to him and the girl across the hall hadn’t been the only one to see the door moving. A search turned up nothing; no intruders, no evidence of anyone living there. The walls weren’t even marked.
The only way to stop the banging seemed to be by propping the door open, but the cold air consistently leaked out of the room, and every so often, the door would swing closed. The banging would start again within hours, and none of us would be able to open it without the key. In the end, the porter gave us the room key to keep in the kitchen, so we didn’t have to keep going down every night it closed and ask for it.
Some nights, when I hear the door swing and click closed, I can hear whispering at the wall beside my head. It takes a lot to go and get the key and unlock the door again, to take a half-step into the room and prop the door open. The banging stops as soon as I open the door, and I can quickly dart in.
The only thing is, sometimes the whispering doesn’t.
—
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