Shirley, Don't Speak!

The woman who lives next door
spent Saturday night preparing
for something. I assumed it was
moving out, but it seems like
she's still there. Maybe it's
a longer process with this one.

From dorms to apartments, I've
gotten used to only sort of
knowing who lives around me,
moving in, moving out; here it's
older than I've known before, a
sort of semi-retirement home, cheap
housing, anyway, in a cheap town.

But these days I never get used to
the going, because it usually means
eviction - or death. It's not a
funny thing, but it is, because I've
never really lived around that before,
its odd little rituals, things ending
divvied up, like the suvivors are
transmogrified, for a while, into
vultures, picking the bones of a life.

Shirley, with her helping dog whom
she constantly chided, was there when I
moved in, and after a while, I lost track
of her and the bell she attached to her door.
Earlier this year, she was briefly in charge
of locking and unlocking the door of
the entire apartment building.

And now this.