Early Morning Write

The light in the hallway goes on and I hear the front door unlock. Curled up in bed, I listen. I can't hear much because M has shut the door behind him. I listen again and glance at the clock on M's side of the bed: 3:35 in the morning.

I hear a door close. Our front door opens. I call out, "Did you go say something?"

M walks into the bedroom, the light from the hallway spilling in behind him. He holds up four fingers. "I said four words 'Turn it down, please'". My hubby, ever so polite, other neighbours may have been inclined to string a different medley of four words together.

Did he actually come and answer the door? Could he hear the knock over the music?

"I just walked in." You did!? What were they doing? My mind runs the gamut of what four young adults would be doing together after rolling home at three in the morning from a night out.

One guy on his laptop, two girls on the couch together: one on her cell phone and the other texting, our neighbour sitting on a couch on his own: the epitome of modern-day community: engaged with our electronic gadgets and connections in cyberspace. The swirling music farcically connects them.

Why bother? I have to ask. Why bother coming back to your friend's place at three in the morning, laughing loud, waking the neighbours, just to check your email, to text or call friends to find out if they are having more fun than you are?

M makes us a cup of tea. The music is turned down. Yet the voices still carry through the night air. We hop back into bed. M reads and I start to write not appreciating my 4 a.m. start. At 4:30 or thereabouts the friends leave and I consider my options of how best to disturb our neighbour's sleep.

The balcony door of the neighbours' above us scrapes open and closed. How I wish they would fix it so that I don't have to hear each time they go outside for a cigarette! Yet there is some comfort in knowing that their Canada Day sleep-in has also been disturbed.

5:28 a.m. my frustration out on the page, I look across at M, propped up in bed, on page 278 of his novel, the one Jean gave him to read. "Ready for another cup of tea?" I ask. "We might as well get our day underway."