IT’S MEDIUM
Two Stories I Started
But never finished
“Quiet, Alice”
An aspiring writer who has recently moved to Manhattan with his wife befriends the woman living next door to him in his apartment building. One night, he hears loud banging next door at three in the morning. The woman, his newfound friend, is a recluse who stays up all night practicing Tai Chi, playing with her cat, and watching foreign movies. This discovery is the start of a bitter feud over noise and the lengths one will go to in order to pursue quiet ‘enjoyment of residence’ in the noisiest city in the world.
Most mornings, she never left her apartment. A fourth-floor walkup on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, it was a true one-bedroom. With the extra space, some reading could get done. Maybe even a foreign film on occasion. There, in her home, she could shut herself off from the world. After all, at sixty-five, nobody was going to come knocking on her door and play savior.
Afternoons, she’d sit on the stoop and eat peanuts, say hello to the passerby, though only those of interest or folks who, despite their hurried movements, offered patient, curious glances in her direction. She seldom parted with her black golf visor. Khakis in the fall. Sandals in the winter. A purple scarf in the summer. Her long, gray ponytail made her look older than…
