Do You Hear What I Hear?

The day I moved in I passed an Indian gentleman and his two young children walking down the steps of our apartment building. It was apparent that they lived above me on the third floor. Smiling at the children I said, "Isn't it a pretty day to be outside? Hot, but beautiful." The children looked at me, big-eyed and silent, saying not one word. Not even acknowledging my remark. Their father did the same.

My sister gave me the oddest look, but she didn't say anything either.

I am used to living under my son's house and hearing my grandson's feet tearing across my ceiling, so it was no problem to hear these children doing the same thing. In fact, I have kind of enjoyed it. In North Carolina I sometimes heard voices, or the sound of guitars playing too. Here there is no sound except that of tiny feet running, jumping and sliding across the floors and every afternoon at three o'clock the rhythmic sound of springs squeaking as if someone is jumping on the bed. Some days are louder than others, with incredible bumps and bangs that almost seem to jar me as much as they might be shaking up their creator. But they remind me of my grandson and I like hearing them.

At the party the other night I commented on them to our apartment manager and she gave me a curious look. Today I saw her come up the walk with one of her maintenance men and I heard them going upstairs. I thought that perhaps there was a problem with one of the apartments up there. I could not hear them once they were up there, which seemed a little bit strange, but I thought they must be in one of the apartments not over mine.

A few minutes later there was a knock at my door and there she was looking a little disturbed. "Have you heard the people upstairs today?" She asked. I told her I had heard them earlier and asked why.

She asked me to accompany them upstairs where she unlocked the door and I stood there aghast. Inside was a completely gutted room. No carpeting, no furniture, wires sticking out of unfinished outlets with a layer of dust covering everything. It was the picture of desolation, or perhaps construction yet to be finished and I thought how difficult it must be to live amidst all this with small children. Turning to our manager I made a comment about that.

She pointed to two sets of footprints in the dust and said, "Those are my prints and," pointing to the man next to her, "These are John's." It took a few moments, but the truth slowly dawned on me.

"What happened to the family?" I asked feeling slightly odd.

"No one has lived here for three years." She walked into the apartment and stood there looking queerly at me. A young man from India lived here with his two young children, but they were killed in a car accident July 14th, 2007 and we've yet to finish remodeling this unit. There are so many others ahead of it. I was afraid we had intruders, but you can see no one has been in here except for us." Her eyebrows rose quizzically as she waited for my response.

I had none.

Of course this is all made up, well at least the last few paragraphs, but wouldn't that make a great ghost story?