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_ Noisy Neighbours _

My bed rocked and rolled, jumped and jolted, over and over. Not for the first time that weekend. Far from it. Too bad it wasn't my doing.

Loud grunts, long groans, and other noises coming from gods knew what or where flooded in through the paper-thin wall. All while havoc continued unfolding in my darkened bedroom. The whole place shook, on and on, forcing anything and everything that wasn't bolted down to do the same. Me included.

"Yeah! Unf! Yeah!" came in choked, guttural drones, clear as day, as if it'd originated from inside my apartment rather than next door. Their cadence matched the rhythm of the relentless rumbling, soundwaves striking my ears in time with the shockwaves slamming the rest of me.

"Gods damn," I grumbled through gritted, tired teeth. I tried to roll over, to bury my muzzle in my bouncing pillow. A second attempt was needed. The unending tremoring had me feeling like I was on a waterbed. A waterbed hurtling down the tallest flight of stairs.

My lamp tumbled over atop the bedside table, its thud no match for yet another bassy thoom echoing through the wall. I dug myself out of my pillow, peeking over to assess the damage. None to find, thankfully. Less thankfully, my sore eyes did find my alarm clock, showing the time as close to 1am on its perilous hopping towards the edge of the table.

"Stop, stop... Gah!" I fell back down to my pillow. Closed my eyes and tried to hide away in the blackness. My new neighbours were having a great time together, no doubt about that. I wondered if their attempts to shake my room, my whole place to pieces was a part of their fun. Fuck me for not thinking for a second that the Maleni apartment adjoining the Visoka section might be a problem. Fuck me again for not realising the walls were like cardboard and the shock-absorbers somewhere between shitty and non-existent.

"Harder, harder!" barked a second, breathless voice, invading the bedroom as another barely muted grunt. The chaos eased. Just for a moment. Only to come back in spades.

A fierce crackle roared through the room, tagging along with a crushing shuddering so strong that it was less a shockwave and more a gods damned shock-tsunami. Out from my pillow I bounced, riding my bed, literally, up and away from the carpet. Pictures on the walls swung away and slammed back against them. One fell. I heard the smash of glass. My work desk repositioned itself, as did my computer, fighting for dear life to remain atop it. Hell, even my wardrobe jumped, contents be damned, thudding back down to the ground with a force beaten only by the rutting beyond the wall. Rutting that hit slower, but with power enough to turn rhythmic shaking into honest to gods quaking.

Bedsprings screamed and squealed beneath me as my mattress struggled to cope, put to shame by the apocalyptic action unfolding atop a larger one next door. Amid the roaring and groaning, and the equally disastrous racket rising from around my room, a wicket crash-smash assaulted my ears. More glass? Not quite. I noticed the silhouette of my lamp missing from the side table, relocated to and disassembled on unstable ground. My alarm clock joined it soon after, guided there by the next aftershock. I wasn't confident that it, nor I, wouldn't fall even further, with deep, aching rumbles reminiscent of collapsing ground reverberating from right under me. No lie, the whole place seemed ready and willing to crumble into ruin at any given moment.

"How d'ya that?" I heard buried among the carnage. "Huh!? How d'ya like that?"

"Shut up!" I clubbed a fist to the bed. "Oh my gods, just shut the fuck up..." Their fun would be winding down soon, but there wasn't a chance in hell that the same could be said of my rage. Wrapped up but in no way sheltered beneath my blankets, I made a promise to myself that first thing in the morning, I'd be clubbing on my neighbours' front door instead. They'd be getting me with full force, exactly like how I had got them... In a manner of speaking.

The morning brought with it bright sun, soothing warmth and a gentle breeze. Perfect weather on an imperfect day. I wiped at desert-dry eyes, weighed down by the four, maybe five hours of sleep I'd been allowed. Nevertheless, I pounded my paws along the outside walkway, both rolling and marching the short way over to the Maleni entrance into the Visoka-sized area of the building.

Once inside, my tired eyes found some relief from the paler daylight seeping into the vast white-walled hallway. A few more charging strides alongside the skirting board brought me to another Maleni-sized door. An apartment door. I suppressed the burning desire to hammer a fist at the woodwork. Instead, I drove a finger into the buzzer, holding it there until the soreness grew to match the rest of me.

I didn't have to wait long to hear more thudding from beyond another paper-thin wall. Lighter, for sure, but with a rhythm that snatched me back to that hellish night before. It drew louder, nearer, starting a subtle shuddering underfoot a few thumps before one final slam sounded out from almost directly ahead. I stayed mad. Fists clenched. Ready to give whoever dared answer the biggest piece of my mind. A lock clunked. A door creaked. A different one. The one that I expected.

To my right, the towering Visoka-sized apartment door crept open. Slowly, surely. I stepped closer, intent on meeting my new neighbour for the first time. Head on, so to speak, just as I'd planned since the early hours.

"Hi," gruffed a voice, a split second before a set of bare brown toes thumped into view from beyond the doorway.

That heavy step stopped me dead in my tracks. No matter. I'd expected it. All part of my plan. Exactly like how I'd expected to have to crane my neck up to find their face. My plan, however, hadn't accounted for a craning so long, so steep, that I almost fell on my ass in the process.

"Can I help you?"

Above,_way_above those big bare toes, stood a bear so tall, so wide, that he damn near reached every dimension of that massive doorway. Beyond his boxers, beyond his vest, I managed, eventually, to find his face. Neutral. Normal. It distracted me from his next step. Long enough to ensure I'd be shocked by its crash landing.

"Hey, otter," he grunted, stern enough to have me forgetting about both the blast of bear-scented air and the juddering floorboards. "I don't got all day, y'know."

The plan I'd formulated in the early hours crumbled to pieces, fading and falling away, just like the rage that'd fuelled it in the first place. Right then, in the shadow of a bear big enough to force me into one retreating step after another, I did my best to find my voice. "...H-Hi. I... I'm from next door... Next door, in the Maleni section, I mean."

"Right."

"I came round to say... tell you something." My tight fists had long since eased and opened into hands that didn't know quite what to do with themselves. I put them in my pockets while I worked out what to say next. "...Actually, it was more, uh, to ask you something."

"I'm listening." He folded his thick arms. If I hadn't heard him sigh, I damn sure would've seen it regardless. "_Still_listening."

Do you really need to fuck your roommate, partner, whoever so hard, so loud that it keeps me up at night? _That's_what I wanted to say. "Do you r..." Pfft. As if I damn well could. "...uh, do you have a car? Out in the parking lot?"

"Yeah. I do." The door frame creaked as that big bastard leaned his weight against it. "Why?"

"Because..." What in the hell was I doing here? How in gods' names did I expect this to play out? I mean really? "If it's the red, uh, Comet, then... you've left your headlights on."

"It's not," he shot back with a shake of his head. "So, no. I haven't."

"Oh... Okay."

"Honey?" I heard another guy sing from somewhere inside. "Who is it?"

"Nobody," the bear called coarsely into the apartment, turning back my way before adding, "Just some guy from the Maleni building."

His tightening arms and tense stare said more than his mouth ever could have. I stepped back and away from the doorway, hopping onto and rolling down the walkway before saying, "Never mind... Have a good day."

"And you," he muttered. I almost missed it with the thud he closed his door with.

Back outside in the warm, glorious, irritating sun, I found my stomping stride all over again. Full of anger, full of annoyance, all thanks to that bear, and me, too. I'd spared the biggest piece of my mind, got it primed, ready to launch it with full force towards that overgrown dick. What a waste.

As I rolled back towards home, tail not quite literally between my legs, I resigned myself to one simple, glaring, shoulder-sagging fact. Whether it was that night, the next, or the one after, I'd have to deal with yet another ground-shaking, room-breaking display from those oversized jerks next door.

"Ugh. Screw this place and screw mixed-size living!" I hoped my computer had survived the previous night's onslaught in one piece. I'd need it to act on another fact entirely. "...I gotta find a new apartment."