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Speaker 1: Hullo. I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.

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Let's get into it. It's strange how a building can

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teach you things about the dock, how its walls behave

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in the i os, when everything else around you is sleeping.

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Last Tuesday night, after two m my hand drifted from

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the thin insulation of my blanket to the little digital

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recorder on the bedside table, all on its own. I

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wasn't sleeping. The sound and other low, almost determined thump

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like a heavy object dragging across linoleum, rose through the floor.

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I sat up, holding my breath, convinced for a moment

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that some one else was listening to as if the

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entire building could feel the rumble and wanted to hush me.

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In return, static buzz across the open mic esquinted at

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the dark ceiling and pressed record. My eyes took too

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long to us. The hum of the fridge on the

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far wall cut in, and a faint count point to

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chorus of quieter sounds, the neighbor's pipe stuttering, a distant

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elevator shuddering, elevator cables grinding, A single cough from somewhere

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above three minutes passed with nothing, then clear as a

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somewhat removing furniture. Just overhead, there was a shove and

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a prolonged scrape that rattled the glass of my water

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on the night's tent. I counted a gap of twenty seconds,

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then a low muffled voice, two or more people arguing

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I couldn't tell. The voices kept leaking through, impossibly distant

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for how present they felt, flattened by layers of ancient

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tile and plaster. I pressed my fist into my pillow

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and stowed up at the cracked white paint. Hence were

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tharms were silent most nights, aside from the predictable cycles

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morning shift, evening tiredness, the odd drunken the stable steps.

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But to night above me on the fourth floor, a

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sequence and spoiled that shouldn't have been possible. Apartment four

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hundred seven was supposed to be empty. I checked the

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building's tenant direct dream months ago, out of idle curiosity,

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and there was no listing, just three units on my floor,

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blunt the fourth floor, in the faded schematic they give

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you when you sign your lees, barely acknowledge the space existed. Still,

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something urged me up. I slipped on shoes, shrugged into hoodie,

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and tucked my recorder into one pocket, letting a little

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red early dee flicker against the palm of my hand.

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My own footsteps sounded like sacoleage, echoing crisply as I

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climbed each stout, tread creaking on the foot, crisp and

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cold in a way that made me feel exposed, more

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active than occupant. The landing on forcemelt of ald adhesive

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and bleached scraped tile in a faint hint of sun

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baked dust. The lights along the corridor flickered overly bright

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and then dull. One sconce was loose in its socket,

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angling toward the floors of apologizing for being out of date.

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Peeling wall paper the old kind thrown up sometime in

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the late seventies, had never properly stripped, hung cockered, hiding

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under scribbles from previous residents. It looked like no one

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had set foot here in weeks, and yet the air

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shimmered with someone else's breath. I pressed my ear to

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the thick, dark green dawn near the stair will turn

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four hundred seven. My knuckles brushed a tarnished metal number.

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I was about to knock for no good reason. When

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a drawn out drug sounded on the other side. As

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something heavy screeted a cross bare floors, punctuated by a

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breathless grunt, my thumb flicked over the volume dial. The

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audio spiked with the rattled friction of furniture leggs. I

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stood stirring at the unremarkable door, steady now in the

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middle of the corridor, listening for someone to finish what

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they'd started. But the noise is cut off. Silence replaced

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them whisper of someone moving away from the door. A

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soft coff echoed in the stair will behind me. I flinched,

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turning to see a giant of gray coveralls an off

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brown mop pausing by the stair rail with a pile

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of trash backs slung over one shoulder. He was bolding,

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maybe late fifties. I was darting up and down the corridor.

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Let me guess, I half whispered, cheeks flush in the

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sudden chill. I'm not the first to be up here

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listening for ghosts. I tried not to sound like an idiot.

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He shook his head quickly, almost alarmed. His left hand

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closed tighter around the trash back handles. Don't mess with

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this floor, he said quietly, as flickering to the silent

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doors after midnight. Best not to be up here. You

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get me, He didn't wait for an answer. Without meeting

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my gaze again, he turned, stopped to wage the elevator

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cold button with his elbow, and disappeared as the battered

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door slid open, leaving behind the stink of lemons scented

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cleaner and a silence that felt twice as thick. I

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stood in the center of the corridor for another five minutes,

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goosebumps prickling up my arms. Every window done, The hall

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was dark, the little brass door numbers dull besmrges, My

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phone clock read to thirty four, and when I finally

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gave up, recorded another minute of absolute nothing, and headed downstairs,

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trouting softly to avoid explaining myself to any one else

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awake at this hore. Daylight came grudgingly when I returned

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to the full four at ten the next morning, the

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corridor scene transformed. It not with the easy warmth of day,

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but with the impersonal polish that comes after a job

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has been swept clean. Every door was closed, the number

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plate for four hundred seven had vanished. Just a faint

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rectangle of clean of paint hinted at where it had been.

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No marks, no sign of tampering. Shoky dust freshened the

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door mat, as if it had been poured out, just

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to settle over recent footprints. I knocked quietly. No one, sir.

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I pressed my finger tips to the door knob, cool

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and disturbed, with an edge of lingering deterdent. Whatever had

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happened last night, it left no mark. I spent the

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rest of the morning wandering the hallway, coming up with

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excuses to talk to other tenants. The Ceeseline third four

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caramel candis in her cardigan pocket chuckled when I asked

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her who lived in four hundred seven. There is no

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four hundred seven, she said, as if I'd asked about

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a room under the stairs. The only maintenance caused its hem,

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boiler pipeways, has been for as long as I remember.

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A press careful not to seem obsessed. But no one

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else recalled any recent tenant. One younger guyas over, who

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worked layshift, said he'd never seen a soul up there,

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not in two years. Man, not ever. Yet last night

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I'd heard voices behind that vanished door. I had it

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on tape. By noon, I realized I was the only

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one who cared. It's funny how rituals accumulate when you're

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intended a way to construct a sense of self. It's

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been just over a year since I signed the lease

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at Hemsworth Arms. The move from my old apartment on

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the other side of the city. Equal parts relief and retreat,

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left me with the bitter affetist of upheaval. So I

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started catalog in the New World and sound as a

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kind of therapy. Field notes, radiators, hissing, thus as, climbing

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the far curbe a neighbor's parakeep, rehearsing classical scales at sunrise.

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My gear is nothing special, but I have folders dating

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Baquier's hundreds of little snippets tagged ambient, a city, be roll,

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a sudden, loud, a weird late. My routines are dull

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but specific. French press in a crack mug of coffee

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by a window, scribbling in a cheap notep with headphones

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around my neck. My attempt at a creative life, or

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at least a product dividleness. I used to be more social,

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pretended at parties, met friends at Noisy Dinos, but most

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of that foul way. After the break up, sound walks

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replaced company. I'd catch snippets from street musicians or record

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the door plus shift of traffic after rain, and decided

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it meant I was learning to listen. Over time, the

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microphone grew less like a tool and more like something confessional.

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Hempsworth's arms felt right when I moved in Crucily anonymous,

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just the right amount of historic decay, a block off fine,

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three stores of exposed brick and faded tile, battered art

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deco lines on the facade. The elevator, when it bothers

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to work, carries a twed patchwork of stickers, a little

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mirror cracked at the edge like a fractured eye. The

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holes are strangely wide, always muffled by thin runner carpets,

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and the faint chemical tang of cleaning fluid. Most neighbors

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you come to know from habit. Misseslin's door was always

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open in the afternoons, the smell of tea curling into

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the hallway. The nurse sun lives alone above me. I'd

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sometimes passed them, carrying a duffel full of scrubs and

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energy bars between these anchors. Unknown people at their doors close,

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their names only half remembered, if at all. The building

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was like that fall of a lifers and urban ghosts.

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Gossip trickle through the walls, usually about personalities rather than events.

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Miss Eeslyn once told me someone went missing upstairs the

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previous February, but then she'd laugh it off, as if

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she didn't really expect it to be true. There's an

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entire ecosystem to petty annoyances. The mail books's jam if

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you look at them twice. Light bulbs flicker for weeks

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before getting replaced. Package is sometimes vanished from the may room,

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only to reappear months later, and claimed and dust jerked

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tenants circulate rumors about management turn over and unlucky force.

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One guy swears at last winter his neighbor moved out

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before the snow thought, and no one's seen him since.

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Conversations trill off if you press current runs through the

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place that says, don't dig too deep, don't notice too much.

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The fourth floor specially feels forbidden in a tired, so

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fulfilling way. I found myself avoiding it. Except for the Audita.

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The elevator almost never stopped there. Always creaking past with

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an apologetic ding. Once after I signed my lease, i'd

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wandered up, curious since the directory listed floors, but only

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to rewelabel for tenants. Mostly it was a baige corridor

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of closed doors and odd mechanical closets. Even the cleaning

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staff skipped it. According to some whenever the topic came

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up downstairs, someone would crack a joke, unlucky floor, or

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maybe it's for the old ghosts, and then change the subject.

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So the thing that happened last night, the noises, the voice,

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the janitors, Sadden discomfort felt less like new information and

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more like brushing up against a code everyone already knew

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but never explained. Still normalst he reasserts itself quickly. I

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make coffee, edited some studio samples for podcast client, walk

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twice to the boga. Each time I climbed the stairs,

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I glanced up at the fourth floor landing, half hoping

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to see some sign of repel of activity or a

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shadow cass against the wall. Instead, all I found was stillness,

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a corridor sealed off by routine, neither inhabited nor abandoned,

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as if waiting for a que to become real again.

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I tried to force myself back into the rhythms I

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had cultivated, throwing myself into work, scheduling coffee with Sam,

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letting the strange events fade into the gray weave of

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daily accumulated irritations. I kept the strange audio from that night,

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my own voice, the furniture scraping, the echoing mumble, saved

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in a folder labeled night Anomalies. I wrote a one

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line note in my diary four hundred seven something is

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off check again, don't let its light. The phrase became

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a talisman, something half joking to myself, but the idea

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wouldn't let me go. I'd learn after a year that

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sometimes it's the persistent on examine details that unravel everything

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you think YE know about a place. It's always the

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background sounds that reveal the real story. I spent two

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evenings replaying the most recent recording, then pulled up old

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files looking for comparison. Barely aware I was doing it,

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I cataloged everything I taped from the hallway outside four

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hundred seven over the past twelve weeks. Strange how little

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I remembered actually being there, or why I bothered recording

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certain stretches of silence but there was a pattern, faint

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but insistent. Every week or two at odd iris two zero,

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sometimes three fifteen, Once just before midnight, a sequence in

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the background, dragging low bursts of muffled voices, furniture or

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boxes shoving against the floor, always in the vicinity of

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a four hundred seven. Curiosity or stubbornness, or maybe loneliness

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in disguise were whatever it was, I couldn't let it lie.

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I scrolled through my messages and realized I hadn't seen THEO,

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my neighbor from one floor up, in almost two weeks.

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His mail box had started gathering circulars. The edge is

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finally curling from being stuffed too long. The little nameplate

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by his box was scratched across, as if some one

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had tried messily to erase the evidence of his tendency.

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I asked Sam the Nose if they'd seen him. Sam shrugged,

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dark circles under their ice, and said he might have

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forgotten a new contract somewhere. When I checked with Missesesline,

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her face went blank for a moment, like the gears

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of memory sticking THEO young fellow with the big headphones.

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Her eyes clouded, then suddenly cleared no, no, I think

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he moved out ages ago, or was at last bringing

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hard to remember people come and go. I started asking

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around a little more pointedly. No one gave the same

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answer twice. The day manager, or a compact, always moving

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woman named Arlene, brushed me off. Not my department, don't

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track who's in what unit unless there's a plumbing complaint.

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She offered a brittle smile and retreated to the office, door,

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shutting before I could finish my question. Meanwhile, the sounds

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didn't stop. I jogged the recorder again. Three nights later,

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right around two seventeen am, a time that started to

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feel predictive. Something bumped hard against the wall, followed by

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a russell and the soft cadence of speech overlaying it

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all as if two people were whispering behind a thick panel.

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00:11:14,639 --> 00:11:16,720
This time, I watched from the stair while angling for

235
00:11:16,720 --> 00:11:20,159
any light beneath the door, any movement, Not then, just

236
00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:24,080
that same sensation, something within reach but systematically hidden. I

237
00:11:24,159 --> 00:11:26,840
tried to cross check the patterns on paper down in

238
00:11:26,879 --> 00:11:29,720
the mailroom, the tenant director's three of them over the years,

239
00:11:29,759 --> 00:11:32,399
spanning from retrofitted flip shots to an ancient excel print

240
00:11:32,440 --> 00:11:35,039
up screwed, crooked to the wall, didn't agree in. Some

241
00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:38,639
apartments were missing altogether. Staff shrugged at my questions, or

242
00:11:38,720 --> 00:11:41,919
laugh about clerical errors, or just changed the topic. The

243
00:11:41,960 --> 00:11:45,039
package lobook was incomplete, names blurred or wided out, keep

244
00:11:45,080 --> 00:11:47,080
by numbers that didn't match any rooms I could walk to.

245
00:11:47,679 --> 00:11:50,639
By this point, suspicion became its own feel. The unease

246
00:11:50,720 --> 00:11:52,799
wasn't just about the noise or the corridor anymore. It

247
00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:54,960
was the way to building itself, seen to conspire, a

248
00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:57,519
haze of denial and collective confusion, thickening each time I

249
00:11:57,559 --> 00:12:00,879
pressed for answers. The more I searched, the weirder it became,

250
00:12:01,480 --> 00:12:03,559
the deeper idulk, the more it all seemed to point

251
00:12:03,559 --> 00:12:05,440
at one place, one stretch of corridor I was never

252
00:12:05,480 --> 00:12:08,759
supposed to pay attention to. Two days later, I tried

253
00:12:08,759 --> 00:12:10,960
something far more concrete, a low stake's bribe, a six

254
00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:12,519
pack of cold sert by way of a plea to

255
00:12:12,559 --> 00:12:15,440
the night desk clerk. She in her fifties, with a

256
00:12:15,519 --> 00:12:18,600
tiet practiced airing crosswood puzzles always half filled, waved me

257
00:12:18,639 --> 00:12:21,480
behind the desk after the labby quieted down, muttering you

258
00:12:21,559 --> 00:12:24,320
didn't get this from me. The Hempsworth's security feed was

259
00:12:24,320 --> 00:12:27,559
a salvage operation at best, cheap cameras, low frame rates.

260
00:12:27,639 --> 00:12:30,919
Everything rendered in those worshtets sickly greens. But the fourth

261
00:12:30,960 --> 00:12:33,559
FOS corridors should patch the oddly angled footage, the views

262
00:12:33,559 --> 00:12:36,200
stuttering every time the digital cock crawl passed eleven third

263
00:12:36,200 --> 00:12:39,919
of them, whole minute vanish jump cuts, sudden drops to static,

264
00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:43,039
a screen saver pulsing, then frames resuming with no visible change,

265
00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:45,879
no doors opening, no one entering or leaving, just the

266
00:12:45,919 --> 00:12:49,600
same old paper and fluorescent flicker. I asked for older reels.

267
00:12:50,240 --> 00:12:54,000
She shrieked, no attention before last month system's glitch. A

268
00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:56,200
lot more on foward than anywhere else. Hath always been

269
00:12:56,320 --> 00:12:59,200
like that. When I tried to broach the subject with Aline,

270
00:12:59,200 --> 00:13:01,879
the day manager, she curtly reminded me that video access

271
00:13:01,919 --> 00:13:04,399
is privileged building property and not my concern. Flecking her

272
00:13:04,440 --> 00:13:07,039
pen at think rublel Like the matter was settled, I

273
00:13:07,080 --> 00:13:09,919
took the elevator down onto the city library, squinting at

274
00:13:09,919 --> 00:13:12,960
microfilm underful reescent headache lighting, and found a building brochure

275
00:13:13,039 --> 00:13:16,639
from nineteen eighty three. All block fonts and faded pictures there.

276
00:13:16,679 --> 00:13:19,440
It was the fourth floor, back when the Hempsworth Arms

277
00:13:19,440 --> 00:13:21,960
still hosted white glove bell huts in a breakfast lounge.

278
00:13:22,480 --> 00:13:25,320
The blueprint was different, four even five full apartments on

279
00:13:25,360 --> 00:13:27,360
the fourth floor with a walled off section label to

280
00:13:27,399 --> 00:13:30,679
private passage. In to day's structure, those units were missing

281
00:13:30,840 --> 00:13:33,720
or renained. Some walls didn't line up in the spot

282
00:13:33,759 --> 00:13:36,000
where four hundred seven should have been, now a corridor

283
00:13:36,080 --> 00:13:38,879
terminating in nothing much. If all this was only the

284
00:13:38,879 --> 00:13:41,559
forgetful artifact of an old building, I'd have laughed it off.

285
00:13:42,159 --> 00:13:45,240
But late that night I interviewed missus Lynnan tape. She

286
00:13:45,360 --> 00:13:47,440
started recalling a neighbor she called the one with the

287
00:13:47,519 --> 00:13:50,519
university books, mentioning his punctual watering of fernes left in

288
00:13:50,559 --> 00:13:53,759
the hallway. But midway she stopped mid Sinden's and trailed

289
00:13:53,799 --> 00:13:58,120
off Priggis, hollowing at No, that wasn't here. I'm sorry, Alex,

290
00:13:58,200 --> 00:14:00,799
I forget the name. She looks so embarrassed that I

291
00:14:00,799 --> 00:14:04,080
stopped recording. Everything pointed at as secret held by Hemsworth

292
00:14:04,200 --> 00:14:07,200
Arms itself, something unnamable that smudged people out of memory,

293
00:14:07,320 --> 00:14:09,960
or maybe just trickled away their details one uncomfortable omission

294
00:14:09,960 --> 00:14:12,799
at a time. I come through the maintenance request files

295
00:14:12,840 --> 00:14:15,519
i'd scavenged from the basement, stacked in dusty folder centuries

296
00:14:15,519 --> 00:14:19,200
old in appearance. One sheet creased and coffee stained read

297
00:14:19,240 --> 00:14:22,399
four hundred seven hot water Leak seven slash nineteen follow

298
00:14:22,480 --> 00:14:25,399
up aclet the same note repeated three years running, an

299
00:14:25,440 --> 00:14:27,919
identical problem for a unit no one officially lived in,

300
00:14:28,320 --> 00:14:32,039
serviced by contractors long since replaced. I'd visited the basement

301
00:14:32,120 --> 00:14:34,960
storage area only twice before, a cement labyrinth, where aging

302
00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:37,879
cardboard boxes lined the wire mesh shelves, many stamped with

303
00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:41,120
names I didn't recognize. While poking around for any other

304
00:14:41,159 --> 00:14:43,480
out of place artifacts, I found two battered boxes at

305
00:14:43,480 --> 00:14:45,600
ankle height, marked in block letters with the names to

306
00:14:45,759 --> 00:14:48,799
four nand estates. Each label matched, and they had seen

307
00:14:48,879 --> 00:14:52,120
half remembered on tenant directory's residents, now scrubbed from records,

308
00:14:52,159 --> 00:14:56,759
almost as if by design. Inside photo albums, a child's

309
00:14:56,759 --> 00:14:59,480
faded teddy bear and neat row scarves about it softable,

310
00:15:00,039 --> 00:15:02,799
all of it cleaned but gently flecked with dust. A

311
00:15:02,879 --> 00:15:05,879
series of moving labels of four hundred seven move out

312
00:15:05,919 --> 00:15:09,360
t BA or return to desk I snapped several photographs

313
00:15:09,360 --> 00:15:11,639
on my phone, hot knocking as I picked through the items.

314
00:15:12,279 --> 00:15:15,000
Here was proof at last. When I brought them to

315
00:15:15,039 --> 00:15:19,519
upstairs management, pressing for information orlean's attitude curdle, she swept

316
00:15:19,519 --> 00:15:22,240
away my questions, lips thinning, hands tight on the desk.

317
00:15:22,960 --> 00:15:25,240
If you want to stay in this building, stop interfering

318
00:15:25,279 --> 00:15:27,840
in business that doesn't concern you. The next day, the

319
00:15:27,879 --> 00:15:31,759
boxes were gone, no note. The shelf stood empty, hollow

320
00:15:31,759 --> 00:15:35,080
as a pick clean roup cage. Things began to shift quietly.

321
00:15:35,120 --> 00:15:37,840
In my own life. My keekout failed twice in as

322
00:15:37,840 --> 00:15:40,759
many days. The mail carrier claimed my packages were not deliverable.

323
00:15:41,279 --> 00:15:43,720
The microwave in my kitchen blinked twelve zero after an

324
00:15:43,720 --> 00:15:46,559
outage I never registered. When I passed staff in the

325
00:15:46,600 --> 00:15:49,799
lobby of stairwell, it's sometimes overhere. Not whispers exactly, but

326
00:15:49,919 --> 00:15:52,600
a certain tone. The words nosey and bus's body repeated

327
00:15:52,600 --> 00:15:55,440
an annoyance, somewhere between a threat and a warning. The

328
00:15:55,480 --> 00:15:58,279
closed system of the building, once so MorphOS and backgrounded,

329
00:15:58,399 --> 00:16:00,279
now clamped around me tightly with the pre I sure

330
00:16:00,320 --> 00:16:03,440
of I was watching firmer step. The true escalation came,

331
00:16:03,559 --> 00:16:06,039
as these things always do not all at once, but

332
00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:08,639
in the form of a single intrusive note. It was

333
00:16:08,639 --> 00:16:11,080
slipped under my door the night after another restless and

334
00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:13,840
satisfying sleep, a single folded scrap of codstock with careful

335
00:16:13,879 --> 00:16:16,799
handwriting and the quickest possible message. Ask about the wall

336
00:16:16,799 --> 00:16:21,200
behind four hundred eleven. That was it? No signature, no context.

337
00:16:21,879 --> 00:16:23,919
I stared at it for several minutes, flipping it over

338
00:16:23,960 --> 00:16:26,799
and over, knowing immediately that nothing about this was random.

339
00:16:27,360 --> 00:16:29,720
Apartment four hundred eleven sat a floor up on the

340
00:16:29,759 --> 00:16:32,080
north end, and I knew half from habit, half from

341
00:16:32,120 --> 00:16:34,320
late night eavesdrop in at its current occupant, a nurse

342
00:16:34,399 --> 00:16:38,200
named Franz's, was on month long vacation. The implication was clear,

343
00:16:38,360 --> 00:16:40,600
now or never. She it has clung to me as

344
00:16:40,639 --> 00:16:42,519
I waited for the building to quiet, plugging in my

345
00:16:42,600 --> 00:16:45,799
recorder for another field tests. At one forty a m

346
00:16:45,879 --> 00:16:48,799
I patted up the staircase, who soft against the thin carpet, hard,

347
00:16:48,799 --> 00:16:50,639
thudding so hard I was sure it would register in

348
00:16:50,679 --> 00:16:53,080
the tape. The door to four hundred eleven gave a

349
00:16:53,080 --> 00:16:55,279
brittle why not its hinges My key guard, meant for

350
00:16:55,320 --> 00:16:58,039
cleaning emergencies worked in the first try off luke, or

351
00:16:58,039 --> 00:17:00,600
perhaps a programmed absence no one expected me to exploit.

352
00:17:01,360 --> 00:17:04,279
Inside four hundred eleven was dark and still a scent

353
00:17:04,279 --> 00:17:07,160
of powdery soap lingering. The rooms were neat, the personal

354
00:17:07,200 --> 00:17:10,359
bare walls, an empty couch. I found the closet near

355
00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:13,200
the hall, a small square barely wide enough for one person,

356
00:17:13,319 --> 00:17:16,480
stuffed with cleaning tools and canvas bags. At the back,

357
00:17:16,759 --> 00:17:18,599
just behind the mop, I trace my fingers a long

358
00:17:18,640 --> 00:17:21,960
paneling that didn't match, rough, dry, slightly hollow. When tapped,

359
00:17:22,559 --> 00:17:25,480
I ran my hand along the seam, fingers trembling. There,

360
00:17:25,519 --> 00:17:27,720
the faintest of hinges had grew, not painted over like

361
00:17:27,759 --> 00:17:30,799
the rest. A small refrigerator magnet on the shelf pried

362
00:17:30,839 --> 00:17:33,359
it up and with a faint pop, behind a false wall,

363
00:17:33,359 --> 00:17:35,759
a wedge shaped corridor, dark as a throat, lined with

364
00:17:35,799 --> 00:17:37,720
faded flowered. While pepper must by does so thick, it

365
00:17:37,759 --> 00:17:40,759
blurred every detail. I pressed record with the shaking thumb,

366
00:17:40,920 --> 00:17:44,079
muttering under my breath into the microphone. My skin prickled

367
00:17:44,119 --> 00:17:47,119
in the chill. Every miner sound echoed weirdly, as if

368
00:17:47,119 --> 00:17:49,960
the passage led somewhere bigger than the building allowed. The

369
00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:52,720
corridor ran only ten feet, but a branch left, ending

370
00:17:52,720 --> 00:17:54,759
at three locked doors, each place where on the earl

371
00:17:54,799 --> 00:17:58,960
obluprint those missing apartments had existed. Numbers were stencil faintly

372
00:17:58,960 --> 00:18:01,680
as a flaked by acid four hundred seven, four hundred nine,

373
00:18:01,799 --> 00:18:05,000
four hundred fifteen. The doors themselves were battered, their knobs

374
00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:08,400
polished by countless hands. The air felt dense press of charge,

375
00:18:08,440 --> 00:18:10,519
not with the sense of presents, but with a debris

376
00:18:10,519 --> 00:18:13,160
of absence, A secrets layered over until the substance of

377
00:18:13,200 --> 00:18:17,160
time itself bent out of shape. I then voices lo

378
00:18:17,359 --> 00:18:20,519
in distinct two people just ahead. I froze hot battering

379
00:18:20,519 --> 00:18:23,400
against my ribs, the recorder trembling in my praised fist,

380
00:18:23,839 --> 00:18:27,000
overlapping conversation, the words indistinct but urgent, as if arguing,

381
00:18:27,039 --> 00:18:30,759
incurred a soft click, the sound of heel scuffing against

382
00:18:30,799 --> 00:18:34,319
warped floors, anik roarse up my throat. I heard a

383
00:18:34,359 --> 00:18:37,240
door open faintly ahead, a hinge quealing against a jam.

384
00:18:37,519 --> 00:18:39,720
I backed out, the false warp breathing closed behind me

385
00:18:39,759 --> 00:18:41,640
with a rustle my breath. Now hide and shop in

386
00:18:41,640 --> 00:18:44,079
the microphone. Back in the sand shined world of four

387
00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:47,160
hundred eleven, the stillness was profound. I half fell into

388
00:18:47,160 --> 00:18:49,480
the hall, double checking that no one saw me. In

389
00:18:49,559 --> 00:18:53,839
my audio log, my voice jumps, whispered wild. I described everything,

390
00:18:53,880 --> 00:18:56,759
breathless and incertain, the false corridor, the vanished doors, the

391
00:18:56,839 --> 00:18:59,759
unmistakable feeling of having trespass in a place not mentor exist.

392
00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:03,000
As I locked up behind me, as slow, cold certainty

393
00:19:03,039 --> 00:19:05,640
settled in my stomach, I slid the note back into

394
00:19:05,640 --> 00:19:08,680
my bag, repeating the words to myself, have I finally

395
00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:11,759
stumbled somewhere I can't walk back from my own voice,

396
00:19:11,799 --> 00:19:13,960
frictional and raw lupy in my ears on play back,

397
00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:16,240
As I hunched by the window, watching dawn barely smudge

398
00:19:16,279 --> 00:19:20,240
the horizon, the secret was real, and suddenly my own

399
00:19:20,240 --> 00:19:24,000
existence felt disturbing. The provisional caught between clearance coats, half memories,

400
00:19:24,039 --> 00:19:27,319
and a corridor that should never have existed. Some boundaries,

401
00:19:27,359 --> 00:19:30,400
it turns out, hold for a reason. Sleep was impossible.

402
00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:33,279
After that, I lay on the bat of futon irbuts

403
00:19:33,319 --> 00:19:35,599
in playing back the hissing under late recording from the

404
00:19:35,640 --> 00:19:38,279
hidden passage, hunting for more than what my memory conjured

405
00:19:38,319 --> 00:19:41,160
two voices, maybe three, The heavier of the murmuring and

406
00:19:41,240 --> 00:19:44,720
clipped almost sing some tones. I clipped and reclipped the audio,

407
00:19:44,799 --> 00:19:47,799
slowing it down, boosting the noise floor, writing little ways

408
00:19:47,799 --> 00:19:51,880
of static. No words surfaced, just that background sensed two

409
00:19:51,880 --> 00:19:55,039
people conferring about something urgent, their tones swapping between heard

410
00:19:55,079 --> 00:19:57,359
and resigned, like elevator mechanics with the dead line. Are

411
00:19:57,359 --> 00:19:59,839
bird was planning and exit. But what'st all my nerve

412
00:19:59,839 --> 00:20:02,680
W wasn't the literal sound. It was how my own breathing,

413
00:20:02,880 --> 00:20:05,599
fast and staccatto laid over the recording, each inhale, re

414
00:20:05,599 --> 00:20:07,400
acting not outside for it, but a sense that the

415
00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:09,440
false corridor and no were part of the same secret.

416
00:20:10,160 --> 00:20:13,599
I set the file aside. Some discoveries I realized fell

417
00:20:13,640 --> 00:20:17,079
too large, generate, at least alone. Apartment four hundred eleven

418
00:20:17,119 --> 00:20:18,720
limned in my thoughts all the next day like a

419
00:20:18,720 --> 00:20:21,319
private joke. I didn't want any one to overhear. I

420
00:20:21,400 --> 00:20:23,839
forced myself out for coffee, sat on the front step,

421
00:20:23,920 --> 00:20:26,920
shelling sunflower sees a driver's neck by trying to convince

422
00:20:26,960 --> 00:20:28,920
myself I wasn't making more of this than I should.

423
00:20:29,559 --> 00:20:32,680
By late afternoon, though, my patience broke. I needed to

424
00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:35,119
see if any other clues were hiding in the old blueprints,

425
00:20:35,319 --> 00:20:38,200
or just maybe someone with answers who wouldn't retreat. The

426
00:20:38,279 --> 00:20:41,440
usual circuits offered nothing new. In the laundry room, the

427
00:20:41,480 --> 00:20:45,200
wer of Friar's camouflaged any whispered confidences. Miss Eselyn refused,

428
00:20:45,359 --> 00:20:49,319
with gentle insistence to revisit the subject of lost neighbors. Sam,

429
00:20:49,519 --> 00:20:51,759
crossing paths with me in the stairwell, met my raised

430
00:20:51,799 --> 00:20:54,279
eye brows with a dry still recording the musical pipes.

431
00:20:54,359 --> 00:20:57,160
Alex then disappeared behind their door without waiting for an answer.

432
00:20:57,759 --> 00:21:02,160
Upstairs and down, everyone seemed unusually preoccupied. Packages clutched as averted,

433
00:21:02,279 --> 00:21:05,240
doors closing softly before I could greet them. I tried

434
00:21:05,279 --> 00:21:08,400
comb in public records again, this time tracing ownership, transfers

435
00:21:08,400 --> 00:21:10,680
and fire inspections, anything at all that might point toward

436
00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:12,920
a reason at building would hide rooms or race histories.

437
00:21:13,519 --> 00:21:15,799
I found hems with arms had changed hands six times

438
00:21:15,799 --> 00:21:19,039
and fifteen years, ownership rolling for shell companies that sometimes

439
00:21:19,039 --> 00:21:22,519
didn't exist on any other paperwork. In every stretch of transfer,

440
00:21:22,559 --> 00:21:24,519
there was a brief spike in missing persons loved in

441
00:21:24,519 --> 00:21:26,799
the city, names not local enough to raise alarms, but

442
00:21:26,880 --> 00:21:30,079
present none the less. It was chilling seeing the bureaucratic

443
00:21:30,119 --> 00:21:33,319
pattern and the statistical bump back in the apartment, muffle

444
00:21:33,319 --> 00:21:35,319
thumbs drifted down from the ceiling, white as the clock

445
00:21:35,319 --> 00:21:38,160
flipped two twelve of them. They were softer, more erratic

446
00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:40,559
as time, a sequence that felt more like code than accident.

447
00:21:41,119 --> 00:21:43,799
I could almost picture it. Quick determined movements behind in

448
00:21:43,839 --> 00:21:45,960
a raised door where every sound was measured by the

449
00:21:46,039 --> 00:21:48,720
risk of exposure, building nerves had a way of fraying.

450
00:21:49,279 --> 00:21:52,839
I found myself glancing around corner, suddenly pausing at intersections

451
00:21:52,839 --> 00:21:55,680
to listen for anything unusual, fingerprints of pressure in the air.

452
00:21:56,160 --> 00:21:58,799
My kikout, which had never given me trouble before, failed

453
00:21:58,799 --> 00:22:00,680
again on entry. I waited in the lobby for ten

454
00:22:00,720 --> 00:22:03,759
minutes until Arline saw her faced opened the door herself,

455
00:22:03,799 --> 00:22:06,559
scanning the card with a look I couldn't decipher. Try

456
00:22:06,599 --> 00:22:08,559
not to break the system, she said, too flatly to

457
00:22:08,559 --> 00:22:11,640
be a joke, bushing past me into her office. I

458
00:22:11,720 --> 00:22:14,359
retreated to my unit and sat about organizing my findings,

459
00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:17,519
laying out folders, photos, coppied email threads from the city,

460
00:22:17,559 --> 00:22:20,960
audio snippets labeled with star ratings. By three in the morning,

461
00:22:21,240 --> 00:22:24,160
my own exhaustion forced surrender. The last thing I did

462
00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:25,880
before sleep was to scribble in my note, but to

463
00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:28,640
ask Sam about Franz's absence, confirm how often four hundred

464
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:31,720
seven's been service to keep eyes open for janitor. When

465
00:22:31,720 --> 00:22:34,039
I woke, the city was already hamming, but a strange

466
00:22:34,079 --> 00:22:37,079
hush clung to the halls. I stealed myself and waited

467
00:22:37,079 --> 00:22:39,400
for the old elevator, the doors convulsing open to whist

468
00:22:39,440 --> 00:22:42,519
me up toward my next attempt. On four the corridor

469
00:22:42,559 --> 00:22:45,359
mirrored as daytime silence, dust and a faintly sweet rot

470
00:22:45,359 --> 00:22:48,240
in the air. The scows in the wallpaper were more pronounced,

471
00:22:48,359 --> 00:22:51,480
or maybe my eyes were just calibrated. Now, no janitor,

472
00:22:51,559 --> 00:22:54,039
no voices, no signs any one had been here since

473
00:22:54,039 --> 00:22:56,640
my last incursion. I crept to where the number four

474
00:22:56,680 --> 00:22:59,200
hundred seven had been in croached, holding my phone's flashlight

475
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:02,119
to the threshold. The dust pattern was subtly different, a

476
00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:04,720
single narrowswath, as if some one had crossed in or

477
00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:06,920
avant light feet. Mindful not to leave a mark for

478
00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:10,400
the uninitiated, I pressed my hand to the door. The

479
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:12,799
surface vexed faintly under my palm, as if hollowed at

480
00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:16,839
no ordinary maintenance closet could sound that way. Impulse propelled

481
00:23:16,839 --> 00:23:20,440
me forward. I knocked, then held my breath. No answer.

482
00:23:21,039 --> 00:23:23,480
Down Stairs, the day manager's office was locked a silent

483
00:23:23,599 --> 00:23:26,839
a band of afternoon some casting shadows in the mottled linoleum.

484
00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:28,920
I lingered at the mail room, where a tall man

485
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:31,039
invaded blue scrubs, one of the fried E c Stoda

486
00:23:31,119 --> 00:23:33,200
staff as sometimes saw with stuffing mis ad dress mail

487
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:36,400
into a box already overflowing with chunk fliers. He eyed

488
00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:39,240
me briefly as a hover, then turned away, humming tunelessly.

489
00:23:39,799 --> 00:23:43,480
This cussed meat. I said, lightly, you've worked here a while, right,

490
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:45,240
Can you tell me who sorts out the store rooms

491
00:23:45,279 --> 00:23:48,599
on four closets, unused apartments, that kind of thing. His

492
00:23:48,720 --> 00:23:51,559
expression flickered weary. If it's locked up there, it's not

493
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:55,000
meant for you, he muttered, almost too quietly. Instructions above

494
00:23:55,039 --> 00:23:59,039
my pig grade. You seen Arlene, She's not in. He shrugged,

495
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:01,680
finished his stack and pulled the pasta crate tight against

496
00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:03,640
his torso as if it contains seekers with more than

497
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,079
all credit card offers. Just if you hear anything odd late,

498
00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:10,200
it might help to let someone know. Okay, I tried.

499
00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:13,799
He regarded me a second longer than was comfortable. Some

500
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:16,559
floors just get quieter than others. Truth is, most people

501
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:19,200
like it that way. He walked off, closing the door

502
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:21,319
behind him softly enough that the impact seemed designed to

503
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:25,480
avoid leaving a trace. The day blurred by some texted

504
00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:28,359
canceling our attentive coffee with a sorry slammed to night,

505
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:30,960
an unusual chill underlying their words, as if something was

506
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:32,839
shifting in the social and a current I could feel

507
00:24:32,839 --> 00:24:35,640
but not see. Misses Lyne declined my offer to carry

508
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:38,720
groceries upstairs, waving me off with a tired but polite smile.

509
00:24:39,359 --> 00:24:41,880
The little web of daily interactions so crucial a month ago,

510
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:44,680
felt thinner, as if stretched taut from behind the walls themselves.

511
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:48,039
The Stone Front rolled in by evening, flattening the city

512
00:24:48,039 --> 00:24:51,000
with a grade oppressed close, damping any hope of clear thinking.

513
00:24:51,599 --> 00:24:53,880
I found myself prone to my recordings again, But this

514
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:56,079
time I tried fouksy, not on late night anomalies, but

515
00:24:56,079 --> 00:24:58,680
on the rhythms of everyday life within hemswith arms, the pipes,

516
00:24:58,759 --> 00:25:01,519
the elevators because of cling door latches testing their strength,

517
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:04,720
voices calling names down stair walls, then a spliced in

518
00:25:04,759 --> 00:25:07,440
the new truck, the trembling, barely audible corridor sounds, the

519
00:25:07,519 --> 00:25:11,279
mechanical wine, my own panic breath. The contrast was stunning.

520
00:25:11,799 --> 00:25:14,400
Every day sands position side by side with these secret

521
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:16,400
moments had a way of making the secret stand out

522
00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:18,359
so much more like a ripple in a reflection that

523
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:21,319
never truly smoothed out again. I ate dinner at my desk,

524
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:23,880
half a sand which I couldn't finish, and scan forms

525
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:27,000
devoted to lost urban history. In one thrid, a user

526
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:29,519
described the decade's old memory of visiting a secret room

527
00:25:29,559 --> 00:25:31,960
in a deco tower west of the river, and names redacted.

528
00:25:32,079 --> 00:25:35,000
No follow up story. All the stores trailed off in

529
00:25:35,039 --> 00:25:37,240
un answered replies, a digital echo of the silence that

530
00:25:37,319 --> 00:25:40,480
seemed to dominate the fourth floor. Some time after midnight,

531
00:25:40,519 --> 00:25:43,319
I tried one more time, returning upstairs, this time with

532
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:46,480
no intention of pushing past the limits. I simply stood

533
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:50,519
at the threshold, letting the stillness settle outside. Lightning flickered distantly.

534
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:52,720
For half a minute, I thought I caught the faint

535
00:25:52,799 --> 00:25:55,119
vibration of forces through the floor. Their tones layered in

536
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:57,240
time with the rolling thund out, until I realized it

537
00:25:57,319 --> 00:26:00,400
was only the city itself, alive, indifferent, going about its cuckles,

538
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:03,319
whether I understood them or not. I stayed there until

539
00:26:03,319 --> 00:26:06,799
my calf muscles ached. There was nothing else, just the

540
00:26:06,799 --> 00:26:09,519
same batter door, the numbered plates still missing, an atmosphere

541
00:26:09,599 --> 00:26:13,200
left behind by architecture itself. Heading back down, I paused

542
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:15,920
on the third floor, landing the building's hum. I've been

543
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:18,000
flowed a voice in the radio, bleeding through a half

544
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:20,720
open window, the husher of a TV game show footsteps above.

545
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:23,759
There was warmth here, reminders that whatever happened in the

546
00:26:23,759 --> 00:26:25,960
shadow of the fourth floor, the world went on below

547
00:26:26,039 --> 00:26:29,240
and troubled before bed. I listened to my early field notes.

548
00:26:29,319 --> 00:26:32,359
Dire is stuff of frustration and sudden delight. I heard

549
00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:35,039
behind it all a cohesion I no longer felt. A

550
00:26:35,079 --> 00:26:37,519
year ago, the world had an order, days made sense,

551
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:40,960
Sounds told a story I couldetic intoherence. Now. Even the

552
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:43,319
rhythm of my own voice felt provisional, as if remixed

553
00:26:43,319 --> 00:26:46,000
by an unseen editor. Yet they urge to prove further

554
00:26:46,079 --> 00:26:49,079
refuse to EBB. Some part of me needed to understand

555
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:51,279
what held all of this together, and what or whom

556
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:55,559
the building's silence protected. I promised myself. I'd rate, gather information,

557
00:26:55,759 --> 00:26:58,480
let patterns rise organically. But I had already crossed that line.

558
00:26:58,839 --> 00:27:01,400
There's a point beyond which curiosity is in the choice.

559
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:05,200
I was there now around free. I slept on headphones

560
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:08,279
to escape the mounting storm. The city hissed on one channel,

561
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:11,119
my own heartbeat on the other. In the space between

562
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:13,839
hempsworth arms whispered, holding more than I had ever imagined,

563
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:16,680
a soundscape at the threshold of memory and forgetting. I

564
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:20,319
pressed recoup one last time before sleep. Nothing but silence returned,

565
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:22,480
But somewhere in the static I was certain lay the

566
00:27:22,519 --> 00:27:25,559
next clue. I pressed record one last time before sleep.

567
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:28,559
Nothing but silence returned, But somewhere in the static I

568
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:31,960
was certain laid the next clue. The next afternoon brought

569
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:33,960
the drowsy town of statnant air and the rumble of

570
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:36,839
trucks out on vine. I stared at the ceiling until

571
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:39,400
the glooey gray faded, then dragged my recorder and files

572
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:41,599
into the kitchen, determined to come them through in daylight

573
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:44,519
when things felt less spectral. I played the most recent

574
00:27:44,519 --> 00:27:47,799
Seeker Corridor audio volume low. Headphones perched lissly over one

575
00:27:47,839 --> 00:27:49,799
air to keep myself grounded in the here and now.

576
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:52,599
Occasionally a voice would echo up from the alley where

577
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:55,359
someone would slam the front door below. Every time I

578
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:57,359
heard a gnase, not in the track my heart. Not

579
00:27:57,519 --> 00:28:00,680
once a morning brown tupum as a carpenter hamerclott of

580
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:02,680
somewhere in the block behind I was. I noticed a

581
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:05,400
cyclical rhythm pattern in the dragging noises overlaying my tape.

582
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:08,400
Three scrapes appoused, two quick shifts thin a thumb. I

583
00:28:08,519 --> 00:28:12,160
rwan listening again. Same cadins appeared a month ago, cropped

584
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:15,279
at the end of a recording I'd almost deleted. This close,

585
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:17,440
I could half imagine a code, as if someone was

586
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:21,519
telegraphing signals through the building floors. I tried transcribing the

587
00:28:21,519 --> 00:28:25,880
intervals by hand, numbers, letters, dots, and dashes. Nothing made sense,

588
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:27,839
but the act itself lent weight to the idea that

589
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:29,759
there was more order here than any kind of accident.

590
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,039
Maybe someone upstairs was mocking time or just fighting the

591
00:28:33,079 --> 00:28:36,640
creepy solitude by keeping a ritual, panicked heartbe I decided

592
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:38,599
I would try to map the fourth floor, compare it

593
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:40,519
to my collection of blueprints in the corks. I could

594
00:28:40,519 --> 00:28:43,160
recall from the late night in cushion, A graph paper,

595
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:45,759
pad ruler, and a mug of last night stale coffee

596
00:28:45,799 --> 00:28:49,119
kept me company. I parted window positions, dray stock coats,

597
00:28:49,119 --> 00:28:51,200
and half walls from memory, trying to mark doors that

598
00:28:51,279 --> 00:28:54,680
no longer had numbers. Some walls from the surface blueprinted

599
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:56,440
in the line with where the corridor had taken me.

600
00:28:57,079 --> 00:28:59,240
There was a wedge shaped void behind four hundred five

601
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:01,599
and four hundred eleves, too big for nothing but not

602
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:05,119
claimed as belonging to any registered apartment at space, I

603
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:07,960
realized would light directly behind the vanished threshold of four

604
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:11,839
hundred seven. The exercise left me more agitated. When I

605
00:29:11,839 --> 00:29:14,599
stood to stretch licks asleep, a heavy, fitful knock from

606
00:29:14,599 --> 00:29:17,319
above a concentrated measure tap, then as squeak, as if

607
00:29:17,319 --> 00:29:19,839
some one had shifted a chair. I tried to tell

608
00:29:19,839 --> 00:29:22,200
myself it was a coincidence, the biproduct of all building

609
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:24,839
settling and restless tenants. But I was well past coincidental

610
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:29,200
explanations now. A little before dusk, while washing breakfast slowne spoon,

611
00:29:29,359 --> 00:29:31,559
I heard quiet voices right outside my apartment, or the

612
00:29:31,559 --> 00:29:35,039
sort of not quite whispering that signaled staff conference, pausing.

613
00:29:35,119 --> 00:29:38,359
I inch closer, holding my breath. He's poking around more,

614
00:29:38,519 --> 00:29:42,079
came a male voice, probably just bored, replied a woman.

615
00:29:42,359 --> 00:29:45,720
Maybe arline. There was a mottering of agreement, a choked laugh,

616
00:29:46,319 --> 00:29:49,279
keep and eye closed the records. Footstets were treated down

617
00:29:49,279 --> 00:29:52,599
the hall, and their voices ebbed into silence. The message

618
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:57,200
was clear I was being noticed. On impulse, I texted Sam,

619
00:29:57,359 --> 00:29:59,559
did you ever hear from France's in four hundred eleven?

620
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:02,599
Or see anyone moving stuff at weird Eyre's. I tried

621
00:30:02,599 --> 00:30:04,759
to sound off into it, off as gossip, not paranoia.

622
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:07,920
The little blinking ellipses hovered a beat longer than normal.

623
00:30:08,559 --> 00:30:11,759
No idea been heads down, you are right? Not really.

624
00:30:11,839 --> 00:30:14,079
I consider typing, but deleted it and settled for a

625
00:30:14,119 --> 00:30:18,119
neutral just curious. Outside, as the city's evening clatter began,

626
00:30:18,279 --> 00:30:20,359
I sat by the window, tracing my mate floor plan

627
00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:23,559
with a finger, marking potential alternate entry ways, and wondering

628
00:30:23,559 --> 00:30:26,519
how far down this rabbit hole had gone. Lights clacked off,

629
00:30:26,519 --> 00:30:29,240
ins cattered apartment at police siren mobbiled four blocks away.

630
00:30:29,759 --> 00:30:31,599
I turned the tape of her den, hearing only the

631
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:34,000
hum of waiting the anticipation of revelation, pressing at the

632
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:36,799
seams of the mundane. When the building finally settled and

633
00:30:36,839 --> 00:30:39,160
the distin was seated, I resolved to rest, if only

634
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:41,440
for an hour, knowing that the silence of night would

635
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:44,640
bring new questions. The record arrested on my chest. Its

636
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:46,880
little light were assuring a single, glowing proof that in

637
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:50,279
alders accumulating strangeness, I was still here, still hearing, still

638
00:30:50,319 --> 00:30:53,160
searching for a story beneath the noise. I didn't sleep

639
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:55,799
the night after discovering the corridor behind four hundred eleven.

640
00:30:56,279 --> 00:30:59,799
The darkness, usually a comfort, felt restless. The building's nighttime

641
00:30:59,839 --> 00:31:01,759
homesh pricked with the awareness of something just past the

642
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:04,599
edges of sense a laine bad head, fronds of a

643
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:06,519
one air to catch the fainted sums any sign I

644
00:31:06,559 --> 00:31:09,119
hadn't misunderstood that what I'd found wasn't simply the result

645
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,160
of exhaustion or too much isolation. I kept replaying my

646
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:15,200
own recording and clipped sections. The voices from the head

647
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:17,440
and corridor were too faint and possible to pass even

648
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:19,920
with filtering and pitch correction. The words fell apart into

649
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:23,640
syllables that suggested instructions of bargaining. Every so often, my

650
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:26,839
own whispered commentary cut through, agitated, disbelieving proof of how

651
00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:29,519
much had let the silence get to me. Rains started

652
00:31:29,519 --> 00:31:32,200
at about four a m. Custing against the windows and squalls.

653
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:35,000
Even the familiar shape of my room was unsettled by

654
00:31:35,039 --> 00:31:38,079
street lights fanning erratically across the ceiling. I got up

655
00:31:38,119 --> 00:31:40,640
not long after, making coffee, while the sky began to pale,

656
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:44,000
unsteady enough balance, My mind kept suckling back to what

657
00:31:44,039 --> 00:31:46,400
I'd seen, had the corridor branched off, how each door

658
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:49,240
had its own weight, its own muffled silence. I wrote

659
00:31:49,279 --> 00:31:51,759
a list of things that were now beyond doubt real

660
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:54,640
the concealed hallway. The markings were riesed, apartments once worth

661
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:57,160
the old blueprint's matching spaces never meant to be entered.

662
00:31:57,839 --> 00:32:00,680
I checked the corridor twice that morning in daylight. The

663
00:32:00,759 --> 00:32:03,799
closet in four hundred eleven was perfectly ordinary, no sign

664
00:32:03,839 --> 00:32:06,920
of how the false wall opened. It clicked cleanly into place,

665
00:32:07,079 --> 00:32:09,480
revealing nothing but a small dent worn smooth by hundreds

666
00:32:09,519 --> 00:32:12,319
of cleaning bottles. I tested the wall for seams with

667
00:32:12,359 --> 00:32:14,599
bare fingers, but if above me the angle of its surface,

668
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:16,720
just a fraction different from memory, as if the trick

669
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:19,119
of entry was always one step removed from her production.

670
00:32:19,759 --> 00:32:22,559
No one else seemed to wear of any disturbance from

671
00:32:22,559 --> 00:32:24,720
the third floor or landing. I watched as the morning

672
00:32:24,759 --> 00:32:27,720
shift cycled through the mail carrier's heavy steps, Arlene bustling

673
00:32:27,799 --> 00:32:29,720
back and forth with the clipboard, and the building resumed

674
00:32:29,759 --> 00:32:33,200
its steady, self healing rhythm. Franz's unit above remained dark.

675
00:32:33,359 --> 00:32:37,480
The absentee's careful stillness was indistinguishable from vacancy. I caught

676
00:32:37,519 --> 00:32:40,119
Sal in the lobby sleep mustard moving fast, and asked

677
00:32:40,119 --> 00:32:42,640
again about any night nose or of recent staff changes.

678
00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:46,119
They looked at me skeptical. If you're joking about the

679
00:32:46,119 --> 00:32:49,000
walls again, I'm working doubles. Don't have time for weirdness.

680
00:32:49,519 --> 00:32:51,400
They sounded more tired than a night but there was

681
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:53,359
a third of caution in the voice now, like they

682
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:56,880
were auditing every question for intent. Every object around me

683
00:32:56,920 --> 00:32:59,759
seemed charged with meaning. The bent male slot labeled THEO theyk,

684
00:33:00,079 --> 00:33:03,279
thump of maintenance carts upstairs, even the banality of elevator

685
00:33:03,359 --> 00:33:06,400
music drifting lazily through crack speakers as I rode between floors,

686
00:33:07,039 --> 00:33:09,319
At some point, the feeling of being watched thickened, more

687
00:33:09,359 --> 00:33:11,519
oppressive than before, a subtle shift, like all the air

688
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:14,319
was filtering through surveillance before I breathed it. In the

689
00:33:14,319 --> 00:33:16,920
best traditions of paranoia, I started talking aloud as I

690
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:19,559
moved through my routines, rating not just for the recorder,

691
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:22,359
but for any unseen audience that might be monitoring my progress.

692
00:33:23,079 --> 00:33:25,279
My kitchen became the war room. Floor plans and tenant

693
00:33:25,359 --> 00:33:28,359
rosters taped to the linoleum, highlighters and colored pins tracing

694
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:31,839
lines from missing apartments to maintenance closets, red circles around

695
00:33:31,839 --> 00:33:35,400
every unexplained door. I made copies of every document I'd found,

696
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:38,359
to brochure pages, service requests, time lines, even the photo

697
00:33:38,359 --> 00:33:41,599
of the basement boxes before they disappeared. Everything was organized

698
00:33:41,599 --> 00:33:45,119
by evidence level, hard proof, witnessed to event, plausible, cover, hearsay.

699
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:48,480
It was the sort of compulsive, overbuilt preparation that comes

700
00:33:48,519 --> 00:33:51,240
after you realize there's less separating small questions from big

701
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:54,000
ones than you though. I called the City Record's office

702
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:55,960
and tried to ask for the third time about ownership

703
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:58,039
of the hens with Arms and its renovations, but the

704
00:33:58,039 --> 00:34:00,000
woman on duty told me should fax what she could,

705
00:34:00,079 --> 00:34:02,920
and hung up before I could press for specifics. No

706
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:06,319
facts ever arrived. Brown noon, I left my phone on

707
00:34:06,359 --> 00:34:08,639
record and watched through the peep holes. Building staff, non

708
00:34:08,679 --> 00:34:11,320
specific in manner and dress, a kind of generic and enimity,

709
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:13,920
paraded in and out of the stairwell. One pause at

710
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:15,920
my door, looked at my number, and for a moment

711
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:17,480
I was certain she could see me through the inch

712
00:34:17,519 --> 00:34:20,880
of glass. She lingered, pentapping on her notepad, then moved

713
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:24,400
away without knocking. By late afternoon, my nerves were drawn out.

714
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:27,320
Fred I heard movement of her head, quiet delibered for

715
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,119
nearly twenty minutes, as if some one was positioning furniture

716
00:34:30,119 --> 00:34:32,800
by hand, then stopping to listen. Of all the kinds

717
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:35,480
of dread at rehearsed, this slow, careful counter surveillance was

718
00:34:35,519 --> 00:34:38,079
the hardest to shake. I wanted to believe I was

719
00:34:38,119 --> 00:34:42,840
being irrational. Instead, every new silence blossomed with threat. That evening,

720
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:45,000
I copied back up files of audio and documents to

721
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,840
three thumb drives, labeling them with numbers rather than names,

722
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:50,400
and hid them in separate places, stuffed inside a hollowed

723
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:52,760
up book, tucked in an unused coffee tine slid under

724
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:55,639
my mattress. One drive I kept in my jacket pocket,

725
00:34:55,639 --> 00:34:58,079
the closest thing I'd ever had to an emergency credential.

726
00:34:58,599 --> 00:35:00,760
I drafted two emails to old fe ends I hadn't

727
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:04,079
talked t in age's, leaving the subjects blank, attaching only

728
00:35:04,119 --> 00:35:06,360
a please read, trust me, tell someone if you don't

729
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:08,559
hear from me soon. I have heard over the sand

730
00:35:08,559 --> 00:35:12,159
button waffling, then closed the drafts and scent. Something about

731
00:35:12,199 --> 00:35:14,119
it felt like it would draw the wrong kind of attention.

732
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:17,599
The storm rolled away by sundown, leaving the city washed

733
00:35:17,599 --> 00:35:20,599
and iridescent under the sodium lamps. I felt like a

734
00:35:20,639 --> 00:35:22,960
ghost to my own building, floating from room to room

735
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:24,960
in search of clues that kept losing detail the harder

736
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:27,719
I chased them. Dinner was a dull affair, the act

737
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:30,559
of eating mechanical, just placeholders for time, passing until I

738
00:35:30,599 --> 00:35:34,239
could risk another and cushion upstairs. I waited until after midnight,

739
00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:37,880
head phones on, gear checked, speare, battery added, sneakers tied.

740
00:35:38,519 --> 00:35:40,559
I placed the thumb drive in my left sock. On

741
00:35:40,639 --> 00:35:42,360
the off chance I needed to get away with only

742
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:45,280
what I could carry, I wore a dark hoodie pulled low,

743
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:48,000
not out of theatricality, but in concession to the seriousness

744
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:50,079
that now hummed under my skin. The air in the

745
00:35:50,119 --> 00:35:52,280
hallway was heavy with the recidue of cleaner and sweat.

746
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:55,559
I paused outside Sand's door to bited knocking, then press

747
00:35:55,599 --> 00:35:59,440
my urgenda to listen. Total silence, either asleep or utterly still.

748
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:02,639
By intent, I crept up toward the fourth floor, landing

749
00:36:02,679 --> 00:36:05,719
every fritzipparisndant against old tile, my nerves amplified by the

750
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:08,360
suspicion that someone or something weighted behind me. I listened

751
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:11,159
at the edge of the passage. No scraping this time,

752
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:14,719
no voices, only the building's chronic reluctance to divulge anything straight.

753
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,079
I was about to retreat when I heard a grinding

754
00:36:17,119 --> 00:36:19,840
click from the end of the corridor, a deliberate, calculated noise.

755
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:22,679
I ducked into the alcove, holding my breath, the recorder

756
00:36:22,719 --> 00:36:25,199
pressed tight to my rips. From the shadow of the

757
00:36:25,239 --> 00:36:27,360
third door, the spot that lined up exactly with four

758
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:30,239
hundred seven light flickered once, sharp and unmistakable, like a

759
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:33,079
panel opening and closing. For a fraction of a second,

760
00:36:33,159 --> 00:36:36,559
the passage existed again. The lockdown feeling of surveillance grew

761
00:36:36,599 --> 00:36:39,960
sharper through the following morning. My mail stopped arriving, even

762
00:36:40,039 --> 00:36:42,519
junk fliers. My laundry cycled through the machines, only for

763
00:36:42,559 --> 00:36:45,119
half my clothes to go missing. I tried to file

764
00:36:45,119 --> 00:36:47,480
a complaint about the fourth floor maintenance, but the surface

765
00:36:47,559 --> 00:36:50,079
number I'd always used now played acle cannot be completed.

766
00:36:50,119 --> 00:36:53,000
Message before cut into dead air. My apartment keep out,

767
00:36:53,039 --> 00:36:55,440
replaced by management a month ago, had suddenly stopped working

768
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:58,079
in the main door. Each time I had to wait

769
00:36:58,119 --> 00:37:00,000
in the lobby for someone to buzz me in their glance.

770
00:37:00,039 --> 00:37:02,199
NIS is sharpened. The word is a body wafting by

771
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:05,000
like a suggestion carried on the scent of coffee. Sam

772
00:37:05,039 --> 00:37:07,519
texted me mid morning, did you say someone was moving

773
00:37:07,559 --> 00:37:10,239
things in four hundred eleven? The message was out of

774
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:12,679
the blue, terse like it was written while word about

775
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:16,960
being watched, I replied, careful, heard noises above, weired vibe

776
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:20,199
everywhere lately, saw anything. There was no answer for an ere.

777
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:24,360
Then Miriam's off got something for you. Meet behind bins.

778
00:37:25,119 --> 00:37:26,840
The bins were at the end of the alley, behind

779
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:28,840
the loading doors, and I had only ever seen them

780
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:31,639
used in early morning. By the last shift, we met

781
00:37:31,679 --> 00:37:34,480
behind the bins at Tupam. Sam looked over their shoulder

782
00:37:34,519 --> 00:37:37,760
twice before coming closer. Their uniform was flat with bleach,

783
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:40,519
and their hands shook faintly. Found this at my door

784
00:37:40,559 --> 00:37:43,079
to day count open it feels wrong. They held out

785
00:37:43,079 --> 00:37:46,360
a manilla envelope, sealed crookedly and tidy. I took it

786
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:49,199
and stuffed it in my pocket, hesitating before asking, has

787
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:51,679
anyone else talked to you about questions? I've been asking.

788
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:55,800
Sam's muffed, which I'm sure not directly. But Jen, the

789
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:58,519
day clerk gone, deskke empty now Orlene looks at me

790
00:37:58,599 --> 00:38:02,480
like I'm someone else worrying. We parted quickly. I ducked

791
00:38:02,519 --> 00:38:04,880
into a bogue around the corner, turning the envelope over

792
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:07,760
in my lap. It wasn't addressed, but inside a small

793
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:09,719
key on a loop of green thread and a single

794
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:13,159
slip of paper, and leaping almost childlike script, don't trust

795
00:38:13,159 --> 00:38:15,440
the records. If you have, do you hide? Back at

796
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:18,000
my apartment, the familiar rooms thought over exposed light too

797
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:21,119
bright on every surface. I tried the key on every lock,

798
00:38:21,159 --> 00:38:23,679
I had none fit. That night, when I ventured to

799
00:38:23,719 --> 00:38:25,559
the basement, I found the door to the archive room

800
00:38:25,639 --> 00:38:27,960
nail shut with police tape, but no police around and

801
00:38:28,079 --> 00:38:30,920
no sign of an actual investigation. I went to the

802
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:33,480
back storage again, but where I'd found the boxes before

803
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:36,000
now was an empty shelf. The outline of dust abruptly

804
00:38:36,079 --> 00:38:39,000
ended in clean lines, like something dragged hastily away. The

805
00:38:39,079 --> 00:38:41,320
only place left to check was the fourth in corridor.

806
00:38:42,039 --> 00:38:44,119
Some agreed to meet at one thirty am, sighting a

807
00:38:44,159 --> 00:38:47,280
scheduled over night shift. I brought the envelope key in

808
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:50,400
the corridor. We waited near the stairwell, pretending to have

809
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:52,239
her by the vending machines, until the last of the

810
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:56,079
evening's traffic subsided. Sam's hands were still, face drawn tight

811
00:38:56,119 --> 00:38:59,639
with apprehension. Are you sure about this, I asked, trying

812
00:38:59,679 --> 00:39:02,800
to pin tremble in my own voice. They only nodded

813
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:06,119
ice forward, scanning the darkest at every little sound. If

814
00:39:06,119 --> 00:39:08,159
we don't, they said, we'll keep guessing. Better to know.

815
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:11,840
I didn't argue better to know, or at least better

816
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:14,559
than living in a thick fog of erasure. We found

817
00:39:14,559 --> 00:39:18,119
four hundred eleven o'lot Franz's absentee status still in effect

818
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,159
in the closet. Sam sharper. I've found the catch for

819
00:39:21,199 --> 00:39:23,599
the false wall, exposed by a rough scrape I hadn't left.

820
00:39:24,239 --> 00:39:27,480
We ducked inside, pressing the panel close behind us. The

821
00:39:27,519 --> 00:39:30,920
air was denser than before, stale with secrets head. The

822
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:33,400
corridor branched much as I remembered. The door was bracketed

823
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:36,199
in silence on either side. I led with the key

824
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:38,960
on its green threat, trying each notv slowly attentions, booing

825
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:42,159
tighter with every failed attempt. Finally, at the door mocked

826
00:39:42,159 --> 00:39:44,760
four hundred seven, the keystuck, turned with a reluctant grind,

827
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:47,840
and the lockside open. Inside the room was stripped but

828
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:50,639
not empty, half lit by emergency fluorescence embedded deep in

829
00:39:50,679 --> 00:39:52,519
the wall. It looked like someone had lived in a hurry.

830
00:39:52,559 --> 00:39:54,840
Drawers left open, coats flung across the bed. A cup

831
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:59,000
appended on the counter, signs of recent abandonment. Sam made

832
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:00,880
a soft and voluntary sound at the sight of a

833
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:03,239
child's drawing on the wall. The crayon color smeared but

834
00:40:03,239 --> 00:40:06,079
on mistakeably vivid pinned the side. It a photo of

835
00:40:06,079 --> 00:40:08,719
people whose faces were blowed where I caught the paper sideways.

836
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:12,119
I checked the closet, then the bathroom. The old walls

837
00:40:12,159 --> 00:40:14,559
rattled at every touch, giving the impression of coats or

838
00:40:14,599 --> 00:40:17,679
storage bundle just behind. I flicked the lights, which nothing.

839
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:20,400
The min source came from within. Along the wall, a

840
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,800
service panel gapped slightly. With a gentle urge of curiosity

841
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:26,360
or dread. I pressed in. The panel swung open, revealing

842
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:30,400
a low doorway. Wires tangled across the inside. Sam hesitated,

843
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:33,000
but I pushed forward. Recorder held out breath, coming up

844
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:36,480
shallow as A squeezed inside. The passag hunt with electricity

845
00:40:37,119 --> 00:40:39,679
at the end. A squat little room, half boiler maintenance,

846
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:42,079
half server closet has two battered silver towers and a

847
00:40:42,159 --> 00:40:45,360
row of drawers. Wires dangled from the low ceiling their

848
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:48,159
endstritchen knotted together, liping round. A cluster of drives backed

849
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:51,039
up against the wall. An old desk covered in files

850
00:40:51,039 --> 00:40:53,480
and marked up dias agreements looked like the detritus after

851
00:40:53,519 --> 00:40:56,800
an office shut down. SAM flicked through the folders, mouth tight.

852
00:40:57,519 --> 00:41:00,840
Each one listed names, tenants and service workers, date, reasons

853
00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:04,679
for a termination. Every entry ended with the same notation erased.

854
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:08,400
There were cross references, payments and signatures that belonged nowhere.

855
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:12,880
Some notes designated request fulfilled summer were set required. I

856
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:15,960
barely let the words settle. I found thumb drives match

857
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:17,880
in the colored ones I had hidden at home, bundled

858
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:21,280
in his ziplock, back stacked beneath albums of fovoes marked

859
00:41:21,280 --> 00:41:24,039
with apartment numbers and outdates. Their faces again blowed or

860
00:41:24,079 --> 00:41:27,480
scratched through a shipment log for digital recorders, then the

861
00:41:27,559 --> 00:41:30,199
seats for hort drives and cloud backups, instructions to a copy,

862
00:41:30,239 --> 00:41:33,280
all zero out dispose. There was a scuffle at the entry,

863
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:36,840
a flash of movement in the dark Santen's ducking back

864
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:40,119
toward the main room. If someone entered, Arline, face pinched

865
00:41:40,119 --> 00:41:43,159
with exhaustion, blocked their path. She seemed bleached up by

866
00:41:43,159 --> 00:41:46,679
the overhead light. Only her eyes lively. He should both leave,

867
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:49,400
she said, before either of us kodask a question. This

868
00:41:49,559 --> 00:41:52,800
isn't what you think, and it's not your business. I managed.

869
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:57,039
People are disappearing. I held out the files, handshaking families,

870
00:41:57,159 --> 00:42:00,320
no records, even to Polisa. Arline cut me off off.

871
00:42:01,039 --> 00:42:02,840
Not my rules, here in the wrong place, and you're

872
00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:05,119
out of time. She reached for a switch on the

873
00:42:05,159 --> 00:42:08,000
wall as her hand hovered a whole space shuttered, the

874
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:09,840
wall's pulsing in and out of focus, as if the

875
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:13,519
air itself decided to flicker. Sam shouted, eared, leading people,

876
00:42:13,639 --> 00:42:16,320
aren't you just what for money? What happens to them?

877
00:42:16,920 --> 00:42:20,719
Arline's face stiffened. They're not deleted, They erased from this place,

878
00:42:20,719 --> 00:42:24,360
moved on somewhere else. Payment covers everything, memory record traces,

879
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:27,000
clients pay, some want to escape, some don't. Same thing

880
00:42:27,039 --> 00:42:29,840
in the end, not your concern. She pressed the switch,

881
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:32,960
and alarms wailed in the glow. I snatched the handful

882
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:35,679
of drives and files I could carry. Sam duck low,

883
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:37,480
shoving the desk to one side. As a heavy door

884
00:42:37,519 --> 00:42:40,360
began to slide down, aiming to trap us inside. We

885
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:43,159
barely squeezed beneath its closing gap, scraping skin off our

886
00:42:43,199 --> 00:42:46,119
knuckles and knees. In the corridor, the air was sharp

887
00:42:46,159 --> 00:42:50,039
and insistent, red lights flashing at distant ends. As we ran,

888
00:42:50,159 --> 00:42:52,920
everything felt off kilted, or's jumble, Sam's echoing wrong, as

889
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:55,800
if the geometry of the building shifted under us. I

890
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:57,800
lost track of how many times we took. At one

891
00:42:57,840 --> 00:42:59,920
point we passed a door, rattling with desperate fist for

892
00:43:00,159 --> 00:43:02,280
behind a voice screaming for help, before fading. As the

893
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:06,039
light spiked, we barreled back into four hundred eleven, bursting

894
00:43:06,079 --> 00:43:08,440
through the false wall as the mechanism behind us lock shot.

895
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:12,079
Access lost. I kicked at once, testing for weakness, as none.

896
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:14,960
The path behind vanish seemed invisible, as if it had

897
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:17,440
never been there at all. Salmon had collapsed in the

898
00:43:17,519 --> 00:43:20,199
empty living room, panting, clutching the hard drives and files,

899
00:43:20,239 --> 00:43:22,559
adrenaline spiking so high the silence felt like a car

900
00:43:22,599 --> 00:43:25,360
alarm ringing in a vacuum in a hallway, only the

901
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:28,760
sound of distant footsteps in the elevator's bell. Sam grunned,

902
00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:33,119
rolling over what now? I didn't have any answer. I

903
00:43:33,199 --> 00:43:35,119
copied everything we had done to the last thumb drive,

904
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:38,159
then walked Sam back to their apartment. We exchanged a

905
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:40,880
terror exhausted agreement to lie low for a while, stopped

906
00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:43,039
talking about what happened until we figured out how to

907
00:43:43,079 --> 00:43:46,199
safely reach someone outside the building. The next morning, I

908
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:48,599
sent files through every online channel I could trust. Encrypted

909
00:43:48,679 --> 00:43:51,199
email to two journalists in another state, physical package to

910
00:43:51,199 --> 00:43:53,719
a friends addressed in Detroit, copy uploaded to a secure

911
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:58,920
archive within irows. Emails bounced back as undeliverable messages to journalists.

912
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:01,440
When unannswered and the friend call confused, asking if I

913
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:03,840
had sent him something. Then Mick Call hesitated and said

914
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:06,880
nothing had arrived after all the digital arc I've listed

915
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:09,079
the files as uploaded, but the next day the fulldough

916
00:44:09,159 --> 00:44:13,239
was empty. Helmsworth arms were organized around me. Movers in

917
00:44:13,239 --> 00:44:16,000
blue uniforms shuffled furniture into units that had been empty

918
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:19,679
for months. The mail room, once a chaos of mislabeled boxes,

919
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:23,639
now held only sort of bundles. France's unit was suddenly inhabited.

920
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:26,480
Tenant files rewritten. Sam's name vanished from the mail books,

921
00:44:26,519 --> 00:44:30,199
replaced by Anne Caldwell. Every conversation with management looped into

922
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:32,599
we have no records of that, or that's not your unit.

923
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:36,000
Some star vanished, replaced by new faces. Already weary with

924
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:39,599
the building's secret, Sam distanced themselves, warning me not to

925
00:44:39,639 --> 00:44:42,840
reach out again. It isn't safe. They whispered for was cracking,

926
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:46,320
before cutting the line. I tried to leave backing wire court,

927
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:48,960
but my withdrawal from the bank's stalled in sufficient authorization.

928
00:44:49,599 --> 00:44:52,280
The leasing office returned my calls with identical emails. Your

929
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:55,920
requests could not be processed. Please contact building management. When

930
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:58,280
I pressed for my old employment records, I was told

931
00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:00,960
my name had never been listed my insurance and slapsed overnight.

932
00:45:01,719 --> 00:45:03,920
I gave up trying to leave and instead barricaded my

933
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:07,280
door with half my furniture. Every night I loved every sound,

934
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:10,679
every unexplained flicker. My mail was returned marked no recipient.

935
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:13,559
On the third night, the hallways were empty. The only

936
00:45:13,599 --> 00:45:15,760
evidence of other tenants came from the occasional mute, a

937
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:17,519
click of door locks, and the pimperk of light under

938
00:45:17,519 --> 00:45:20,599
closed doors. On the fourth morning, I found a small

939
00:45:20,599 --> 00:45:23,239
cardboard box outside my door and address, except for a

940
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:26,679
crooked alex H T and faintly marker. Inside the box

941
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:29,199
my old college ID, a ring I hadn't seen since

942
00:45:29,199 --> 00:45:31,719
moving day, a battered notebook I remembered losing during the

943
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:34,119
first week here, and a blank contract for tendancy in

944
00:45:34,119 --> 00:45:37,719
the henswift arms beneath it. My digital recorder its memory

945
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:40,360
wiped the files from my first week deleted. There was

946
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:42,679
also a single square of paper with the building's logo

947
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:45,320
and faded gray blank except for one clean crease down

948
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:48,320
the scent stirring at the recorder, I loaded the most

949
00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:52,199
recent file, expecting nothing. Instead what play was my own voice,

950
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:55,079
much younger and uncertain, describing the move. I don't know

951
00:45:55,119 --> 00:45:57,159
what I'll find here, but maybe I'll find out who

952
00:45:57,159 --> 00:45:59,639
I was supposed to be. The words clipped away to

953
00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:02,280
solve in a storm of static, replaced by another series

954
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:04,480
of entres that repeated, each one bleeding into the next,

955
00:46:05,119 --> 00:46:08,400
the same questions, the same circular searched for hidden rooms.

956
00:46:09,119 --> 00:46:12,239
I looked up, sudden urgency rising. I pressed my ear

957
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:13,679
to the hallway door and caught the cliine of ver

958
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:16,840
Janitor's cart, the murmur voices of two workers, and very

959
00:46:16,840 --> 00:46:19,440
faintly echo footsteps heading up the main stairs toward the

960
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:23,119
four floor. He pulled in my hands. I followed, recoder

961
00:46:23,159 --> 00:46:26,000
and palm, as if in trance. The corridor on four

962
00:46:26,079 --> 00:46:30,159
was fluorescent and antiseptic. No door bore a number. Every

963
00:46:30,159 --> 00:46:32,760
surface was smooth and clean enough to seem recently painted.

964
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:35,119
The only trace of the pasta too bright rectangle where

965
00:46:35,159 --> 00:46:37,960
four hundred seven had once been. At the far end,

966
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,639
the faintest echo shuffling feet drifted from behind a locked door.

967
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:44,440
Silent spilled through every gap. I stared at the thirshold,

968
00:46:44,559 --> 00:46:46,239
waiting for a sign, on any sign that some one

969
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:49,119
would return, or that the corridor might breathe again. The

970
00:46:49,199 --> 00:46:52,000
sound of voices faded, replaced only by the subtle pulse

971
00:46:52,039 --> 00:46:55,239
of the building's electrical system. In the hush, my mind

972
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:57,760
filled every recess with memory, layering what I'd learned and

973
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:00,440
what I couldn't recall. The door was blank, but my

974
00:47:00,519 --> 00:47:03,480
name seemed to vibrate just out of range. I returned

975
00:47:03,519 --> 00:47:05,239
to my apartment, unable to shake the sense that I

976
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:07,480
run the whole circuit, only to end up exactly where

977
00:47:07,519 --> 00:47:10,440
I began. I placed the recorder on my desk, touched

978
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:13,000
every object in the return box, and watched the window

979
00:47:13,039 --> 00:47:16,000
until dusk. All the while, the only thing that mattered

980
00:47:16,039 --> 00:47:19,280
was the little red led blinking gently. I waited, and

981
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:21,519
as darkness filled the corners of the room, I pressed

982
00:47:21,559 --> 00:47:24,760
record one final time. I waited, and as darkness filled

983
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:27,320
the corners of the room, I pressed record one final time.

984
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:30,079
This is a particular kind of silence that settles when

985
00:47:30,079 --> 00:47:32,519
you press record, not to capture noise, but to summon

986
00:47:32,559 --> 00:47:34,760
something hidden, almost as if the microphone itself is an

987
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:36,920
invitation for the room to fill up with what it shouldn't.

988
00:47:37,559 --> 00:47:39,519
I sat up straight at my desk, feeling my own

989
00:47:39,599 --> 00:47:41,760
voice enter the space. Except this time I had nothing

990
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:44,079
left in the right. There were no new knocks at

991
00:47:44,079 --> 00:47:47,000
the walls, no urgent conversations outside the door, just the

992
00:47:47,039 --> 00:47:50,400
sound of my own breath hanging between sentences. That and

993
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:53,400
the low, cyclical hum of the building's electrics wires buzzing

994
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:56,239
somewhere behind the pasture, as if in conversation with my nerves.

995
00:47:56,960 --> 00:47:59,400
I thumbed through the stack of recovered belongings as I spoke,

996
00:47:59,559 --> 00:48:01,800
laying each down with a care that felt ceremonial. The

997
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:05,480
ring my old idea, the lease. My words fell out

998
00:48:05,639 --> 00:48:09,280
soft and stilted, caring more apology than narrative. I wasn't

999
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:11,639
sure who I was recording for a future version of myself,

1000
00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:14,000
or version the building would eventually return to when it

1001
00:48:14,039 --> 00:48:17,039
was ready. Monday was some day pretending to be It's

1002
00:48:17,079 --> 00:48:19,559
after midnight, whoever you are, whoever I am. Now, I've

1003
00:48:19,599 --> 00:48:22,480
tried everything. The evidence emptied itself, like water evaporating from

1004
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:24,760
the glass. In two days, the apartments up here have

1005
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:27,400
filled and empted again, new locks, new names. The walls

1006
00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:29,880
are still humming and then talking into the dark, hoping

1007
00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:32,800
this time, something will catch and stay. The room poles

1008
00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:35,280
with its own uncertainty. One bulb over the sink, stuttering

1009
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:38,639
along with my heartbeat. Another floor above, pipes banked in

1010
00:48:38,679 --> 00:48:40,800
a three beat rhythm identical to the thumbs I heard

1011
00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:43,320
behind the erased doors, a reminder or a prompt not

1012
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:46,079
to forget. When I closed my eyes, it was easy

1013
00:48:46,079 --> 00:48:48,199
to convince myself I was still standing in the corridor,

1014
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:50,920
feeling the pressurized air and hearing voices sliding through all

1015
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:54,679
vents distantly. An elevator will cut the stillness three fours removed.

1016
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:58,960
Maybe I heard footsteps of alaying my recording hesitation telegraph

1017
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:01,840
and six measured steps. As I listened, there was a

1018
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:04,280
suggestion of someone pausing at my door, but it dissolved

1019
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:06,280
before I could decide if it was an echo, a memory,

1020
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:08,159
or just the shape of fear fitting itself into every

1021
00:49:08,199 --> 00:49:12,119
day sounds. I never quite resolved to stop trying. Each day.

1022
00:49:12,239 --> 00:49:14,480
The follow drew a narrow circle life, folding in on

1023
00:49:14,519 --> 00:49:17,880
the tiny routines I could still control. My phone remained useless.

1024
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:20,400
The building's wireless network clocked to every device I owned,

1025
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:23,559
except for the app that recorded and erased Arlee was

1026
00:49:23,599 --> 00:49:26,559
never at her desk. Sam's phones stopped ringing. The faces

1027
00:49:26,599 --> 00:49:28,719
in the lobby were always new, different e coated in

1028
00:49:28,760 --> 00:49:31,280
the same sheine of practiced indifference, as if each had

1029
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:34,920
replaced someone else recently memorizing their part. Others started to

1030
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:37,599
vanish in subt o ways. Misseslin's plants arrived in the

1031
00:49:37,599 --> 00:49:41,159
trash room, the faded labels lost. The shop pharmacist from

1032
00:49:41,199 --> 00:49:43,239
two hundred nine, who used to always greet me with

1033
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:46,039
the tired wave, was gone. His mail books restensled. Overnight

1034
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:49,199
at breakfast, some one's child came knocking, asking if I

1035
00:49:49,199 --> 00:49:52,079
had seen their mother. I tried to ask which apartment,

1036
00:49:52,079 --> 00:49:53,960
but the child only shrugged and left, as if even

1037
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:57,320
that was classified information. There was an undercurrent of panic,

1038
00:49:57,400 --> 00:50:00,440
always just beneath the surface, as flicked me more often

1039
00:50:00,559 --> 00:50:03,519
hushed voices stopp when I passed by. The elevator was

1040
00:50:03,559 --> 00:50:06,239
a roulette wheel stopping at fall with greater frequency. Doors

1041
00:50:06,280 --> 00:50:10,079
openly onto that unbroken wall. Sometimes briefly the panel inside

1042
00:50:10,079 --> 00:50:13,679
would flicker with numbers that didn't exist, seven eleven, then

1043
00:50:13,719 --> 00:50:16,920
blinking back to four. I once pressed the emergency button

1044
00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:19,079
just to see and got a burst of static. In

1045
00:50:19,119 --> 00:50:22,280
a firm accorded reply remained calm. Maintenance is on its way.

1046
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:24,920
I kept to the second four as much as possible,

1047
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:28,320
tension in my shoulders ever present, yet whenever noise folted

1048
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:30,320
down from above, every nerve in my body seemed to

1049
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:33,280
orient itself to the source. When them in net dragging

1050
00:50:33,320 --> 00:50:35,880
sounds began again, only this time more urgent, as though

1051
00:50:35,880 --> 00:50:37,760
there was actual purpose behind them, I was sure some

1052
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:41,920
one somewhere expected me to act the compulsion one. At

1053
00:50:41,920 --> 00:50:44,159
half past two, I gathered the envelope key, a kitchen

1054
00:50:44,199 --> 00:50:47,239
ife tucked uselessly inside my coat, and about a digital recorder.

1055
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:50,880
The hall was felt alien, even after a year here.

1056
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:53,239
I knew suddenly that nothing about Hemsworth Arms had ever

1057
00:50:53,239 --> 00:50:55,880
belonged to any one who lived inside it. We were

1058
00:50:55,920 --> 00:50:59,480
tenants of denial, first, then memory, then absence. When I

1059
00:50:59,519 --> 00:51:02,519
reached the four floor landing, the scene was precise, dullus

1060
00:51:02,599 --> 00:51:05,400
expanse at the corridor's end, shadow locked against the wall

1061
00:51:05,440 --> 00:51:07,920
where four hundred seven years to be not a sound

1062
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:11,280
but the chats whisper. For a moment I considered slipping away,

1063
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:14,360
embracing ignorance, but the pulse of steps circled in the

1064
00:51:14,400 --> 00:51:16,599
cop it as if someone else had just left or

1065
00:51:16,679 --> 00:51:19,519
was about to arrive. A click suttle barely there broke

1066
00:51:19,559 --> 00:51:22,440
the tension. The janitor, the one who had first warned

1067
00:51:22,440 --> 00:51:25,119
me off Ford, turned the corner. Mab balanced on shoulder.

1068
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:28,519
He paused, looked at me, and then, with strange gentleness,

1069
00:51:28,559 --> 00:51:32,000
invited me closer, looking for something, he asked, voice neutral

1070
00:51:32,079 --> 00:51:35,480
but not unkind. I nodded, I need to see if

1071
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:38,079
there's someone's still in there four hundred seven or whatever

1072
00:51:38,119 --> 00:51:42,280
it's called. He hesitated, You sure you want to? There's

1073
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:45,280
no reassurance in his tone, only the practiced resignation of

1074
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:49,000
someone who's witnessed the routine a thousand times. Still oppressed on,

1075
00:51:49,760 --> 00:51:51,920
he handed me the old ring of keys, green threads

1076
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:55,159
still lived through one. If the door opens for you, you'll

1077
00:51:55,039 --> 00:51:57,880
get what you're after or lose it. More likely. That's

1078
00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:00,400
how it works here at the threshold, I held the

1079
00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:02,760
key tightly, fitting it into the faint depression where the

1080
00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:06,360
knobs should have been. Cold metal met my palm. I pressed,

1081
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:09,199
expecting resistance, but the surface yielded, not smoothly, but with

1082
00:52:09,199 --> 00:52:11,920
the sluggish, sticky movement of something meant to never be opened.

1083
00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:15,360
Twice inside I knew perfect repic of my own apartment,

1084
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:19,079
put off by small, insistant details. The windows were switched.

1085
00:52:19,079 --> 00:52:21,639
The kitchen table had my grandmother's tablecloth, the one I'd

1086
00:52:21,639 --> 00:52:24,239
lost in the move. On the console were pictures from

1087
00:52:24,239 --> 00:52:26,719
ten years prior, when I still lived out near the docklands.

1088
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:30,239
The air was warm and fresh, untouched by time or memory.

1089
00:52:30,880 --> 00:52:33,000
There was some one sitting at the table back turned

1090
00:52:33,519 --> 00:52:35,480
a posture that was familiar, at lengths of the arm

1091
00:52:35,480 --> 00:52:37,519
and neck, just wrong enough to make meet out everything.

1092
00:52:38,039 --> 00:52:40,000
They reached for the record of my recorder, turning it

1093
00:52:40,079 --> 00:52:42,000
over and over in their hands, as though it might

1094
00:52:42,039 --> 00:52:45,239
give up everything if only studied long enough. Without turning,

1095
00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:48,599
they spoke, it's easy to forget who starts these stories

1096
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:52,719
or where they end. My own voice or something nearerly close, continued.

1097
00:52:52,920 --> 00:52:54,840
The contracts in the box. Just sign and you can

1098
00:52:54,920 --> 00:52:57,760
go or don't. Either way, the building remembers even when

1099
00:52:57,800 --> 00:53:01,000
you don't. The anxiety in my chest sure harpened. What

1100
00:53:01,119 --> 00:53:05,280
happened to the others? I Aske's voice strangled, no answer,

1101
00:53:05,440 --> 00:53:08,320
only the slow turn of the recorder tip wheel spinning soundlessly.

1102
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:12,960
I stepped further inside, my reflection caught in a windowpane identical,

1103
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:16,159
but wearing the wrong jacket, hair parted on the opposite side.

1104
00:53:16,719 --> 00:53:19,960
The figure at the table remained faceless. Their hands, though,

1105
00:53:20,079 --> 00:53:23,559
were exact copies of mine. Details piled up quietly revolting

1106
00:53:24,119 --> 00:53:25,760
on the fridge, hung a polo or to some in

1107
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:28,800
the lobby, arms slung around my shoulders, both faces wiped

1108
00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:32,039
clean by shadow from the lens flare. It was unmistakealy real,

1109
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:36,280
yet utterly erased. Suddenly I heard the corridor door creak open.

1110
00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:39,840
One step later, a shadow Arline or her double appeared

1111
00:53:39,840 --> 00:53:42,559
in the mirror. Voice low and measured. They never keep

1112
00:53:42,639 --> 00:53:45,760
up for long, nobody does not. Really. She set her

1113
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:48,280
hand on my shoulder, and I realized the noise the

1114
00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:50,800
story is the careful collection of objects. The building gathered

1115
00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:53,440
them up, edited out what didn't suit, recompiled the pieces.

1116
00:53:54,039 --> 00:53:57,280
The lights flickered. The shape at the kitchen table disappeared,

1117
00:53:57,320 --> 00:53:59,599
as though it had been a miroage. Now it was

1118
00:53:59,639 --> 00:54:01,920
just all lean and me, standing amid the slightly off,

1119
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:04,920
slightly too familiar trappings of my own erased history. She

1120
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:07,159
pressed a slip of paper into my hand, a contract

1121
00:54:07,239 --> 00:54:10,119
already initiated, still blank, with signature and day should go.

1122
00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:13,159
You can let it go, she said, or hold on

1123
00:54:13,199 --> 00:54:15,199
to the story such as it is. But you can't

1124
00:54:15,199 --> 00:54:18,039
have it both ways. Decide. The air round us thickened

1125
00:54:18,039 --> 00:54:21,800
with thozone in the faintest electronic wine. I hesitated, hovering

1126
00:54:21,840 --> 00:54:24,840
between action and paralysis, knowing any step would reinforce the

1127
00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:27,960
building's made of memory and forgetting. At the threshold, I

1128
00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:31,679
made a choice. I didn't sign Holding the recorder, I pivoted,

1129
00:54:31,679 --> 00:54:34,559
pressing record harder than before, and bolted back for the corridor.

1130
00:54:35,159 --> 00:54:37,760
The doors warked as I passed a flicker of impossible geometry,

1131
00:54:37,760 --> 00:54:39,599
and the passage spat me out on the main staircase,

1132
00:54:39,679 --> 00:54:43,440
landing breathless and trembling with some new hollow certainty. The

1133
00:54:43,519 --> 00:54:46,320
keys in my hand were gone in my palm only

1134
00:54:46,360 --> 00:54:48,920
the paper now bearing my signature, ininga I didn't recall

1135
00:54:48,960 --> 00:54:52,159
lifting a penterite. I ran down the stairwell to my apartment,

1136
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:55,159
feeling a world trink. Corridor by corridor behind me, the

1137
00:54:55,199 --> 00:54:57,920
doors shut themselves in sequence, each clickerase in the route

1138
00:54:57,920 --> 00:55:00,719
I taken. I collapsed into much air, setting down the

1139
00:55:00,760 --> 00:55:04,199
recorder with hands that wouldn't stop shaking. On playback, the

1140
00:55:04,239 --> 00:55:06,440
tape carried nothing but a dense static than the faint

1141
00:55:06,519 --> 00:55:08,400
hum of distant footsteps in a hole that no longer

1142
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:11,880
mapped to any blueprint. After some minutes, my own voice surfaced,

1143
00:55:11,960 --> 00:55:14,440
asking over and over do you remember why you're here?

1144
00:55:14,559 --> 00:55:18,039
Do you remember who you were supposed to be? And

1145
00:55:18,159 --> 00:55:20,519
that is the end? Thank you for listening, and I

1146
00:55:20,599 --> 00:55:22,800
will see you in the next one.