Water Hot For TeaJuliet has told me the name of the Asian man living on the third floor. She was sitting across me on the big chair on the study when she closed her book around her finger to keep her place and leaned her lips close to my ear. I do not know if Juliet has been to the third floor, or even if she has met him. I do not think she has. More than me, though, she knows his name. Or: she has managed to name him.
The stairs to the third floor creak and strain with age and the effort of supporting hesitant feet. I have resigned myself to never going up there without broadcasting my approach. In turn, I do not feel that I am ever unannounced, and I do not knock on doors. The stairs are loud enough to hear anywhere in the house. I have never heard him come down from there.
The only thing strange about that is that sometimes he is not there. I likely imagine the difference, but I can sometimes tell. The walls feel closer, and the smells hold more age, and the air becomes softer to better swallow my foot falls. On those days, I cannot find him. It may be that he hides from me, up there in the boxes and all of the jumble and pile, but I do not think so.
His name is Mr. Shen.
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