Hey, Prosers, 

The Bookstore launch is only bloody tomorrow!! 

We are anxious, nervous, excited, and a bunch of noises that portray all of them. 

Today's giveaway is a big one. It's the last one. One of you will get 2000 coins to spend in the Bookstore. Watch out wordporn, this winner is going to devour you! 

So, how do you get your mitts on the coins? Share this post as many times as possible on all social platforms, then come and comment (again, on this post) and tell us how many times you've shared it. Don't go telling us porky pies (lies) though, we will find out. 

All winners will be announced tomorrow! 

Over the lifetime of Prose, we've always tried to pinpoint exactly what it is that makes Prose unique. It's taken us a long-ass time, but we think we've nailed it now, and we'd like to share it with you. 

There are a couple of things that we know will make Prose even more unique, (if that's possible), but we can't share those with you just yet, because they're coming soon, and top secret. We like to build a little suspense - what story doesn't? 

1) Bookstore 

Launching tomorrow, our Bookstore is set to flip the publishing world the right-side up. The author-side up. Taking the greed out of the industry and kicking it in the books. (No, not balls, books.) 

Our royalties will be the fairest in the whole industry, and we offer the flexibility to sell your content your way. Whether you want to sell short stories, books per chapter, or whole books, Prose will support you. You set your own prices and you'll never be penalised. Want to offer your book as a freebie? No sweat, do it. 

2) Copyright 

Your copyright always remains your own with Prose. Which, in turn, gives you the freedom to distribute your words wherever you choose. We don't bind you in with exclusivity contracts or penalise you when you share your words elsewhere. 

3) No Censorship 

We've always made this very clear to everyone. We do not, nor will we ever, censor your words. Words are there for us to use, and it'd be a shame to leave some of the more colourful ones out, right? You want to cuss? Do it. We aren't stopping you. Want to write something really mature? Go for it. The world needs your words, warts and all. 

4) Challenge Stream

Okay, some of you may say, "it's just a challenge stream," but it's a place of collaboration. A place where people from all across the world inspire each other. And to us, there isn't anything quite as unique as that. 

5) Letters from Prison

Prose made a promise that we would take on philanthropic endeavours to use the power of words to improve lives. We've fulfilled that promise by taking Prose into prison. Each week we set the residents tasks, and then post their poems and stories in the Letters from Prison Portal. You guys have been commenting on those posts and we've then taken those comments back to the prison for the residents to read. The results we have seen are outstanding. The power of their words, and your words, have had a profound affect on the residents. Boosting confidences, reducing anxiety, and anger. We are giving these people a voice with a non-judgemental ear to listen. 

6) Portals

Talking of Portals, we think all of our Portals are pretty unique. If you're a reader, and haikus are your thing, there's a Portal for that. We've a huge amount of Portals for writers to fill and readers to devour.

7) Unique content

Not only do we have the unique content from the residents in prison, but we have unique content being written on Prose, everyday. If you are a voracious reader like we are on the Prose team, you will never, ever run out of fresh and unique content to read. It is, hands down, some of the best content we have ever read, period. 

8) The community /social integration

We have saved the best till last. It should come as no shock to you that you, our wonderful community, are the best and most unique thing about Prose. When you think about social media, a lot of you will think about trolls, unnecessary comments made by a bunch of keyboard warriors. Judgemental minds and unsupportive groups. Not here. Not on Prose. This community is the best and most unique community we have ever seen. Without you all of the other unique things wouldn't be possible. Without you, there would be no Prose. Keep doing what you're doing. There are no words to thank you enough for being here. 

Tomorrow we launch a new chapter of our story, and we are taking you all along for the ride. Our partnership with each and every one of you will continue, and we promise to always put you all in the forefront of our minds for every decision we make. 

Until tomorrow, our launch, Prosers, 

Prose.   

I’m on my second beer when he sits down beside me at the crowded bar.

At first, I don’t acknowledge him, because I’m way too busy staring at the picture of JewBoy87’s penis on my phone and wondering when my life came to this.

Firstly, who sexts pictures of their genitals at eight p.m. on a Friday night? Someone with no life, who has nothing better to do than come home from work, make dinner for himself, before stripping down and taking photos at various angles of his very erect, very pink penis. Or someone who just has a folder entitled ‘Dick Pix’ on their smartphone just for show-and-tell moments like this...

2nd November 2014

Anabelle Glass sat opposite her boss. Her overweight, sweaty-faced boss. For several weeks now, the office had had a competition running as to when the white shirt he had on every Tuesday and Wednesday would burst open. The buttons, straining further than ever, looked like they could quite easily spring from his shirt placket, fly across the short expanse of desk space between them and hit her on the head.

“… I like you, Anabelle. I really do.” Sigh. “But this is twice now. In a week.”

His chest hairs were poking through the holes between chest and shirt, wiry things, from what Anabelle could see, and not at all attractive. Also, he had a piece of broccoli – spinach? – stuck between his crooked front teeth and it made everything he was saying that little bit more repulsive.

“…I mean, your mother would…”

And there he went again. Anabelle’s conscience sighed and shook her head, knowing this particular thread of conversation by heart. Anabelle’s mother had been a vital part of the company – blah, blah – Anabelle was not doing much for the Glass reputation – blah, blah – didn’t Anabelle think her legacy was worth more than this? Blah, blah.

He’d stopped talking. Shit, Anabelle thought. How long had he been waiting for her to say something?

“Um,” she cleared her throat and fidgeted a little on the spot, twiddling fingers and thumbs together. “Mr Lloyd – ”

“Jeff, dear,” he smiled, as though they were having a friendly chat, rather than a this-is-the-time-I-will-actually-fire-you chat.

“Yeah, Jeff. I know I’ve seen the inside of this office a few too many times…” She trailed off, not quite knowing what she was going to say. An excuse? She had none. An apology? Again, she had none.

Jeff sighed, the warm breath wafting her way unpleasantly. “I think we both know that you’re just not… meshing with the company, dear.” Anabelle raised her eyebrow at that, but Jeff carried on talking. “I’ve let you get away with quite a bit, when you think about it – but it’s gone too far. We’re going to have to…” Here, he stuttered, wiped his brow with the back of his hand and took a breath, like it was paining him. “We’re going to have to let you go. Grab your things and go to HR for your last pay check.” The last few words tripped over themselves and he turned from Anabelle to his computer.

Outside the tall, glassy building, clutching a half-full cardboard box with a sheaf of paper and a personalised desk organiser inside, Anabelle paused. She was undeniably having a ‘moment’. Prior to her job with Lloyd & Co., she’d worked for an aquarium, and occasionally they’d have a child with one of those final-wish companies wanting to swim with dolphins or sharks. Watching the smiles on their faces when they had that wish granted always made Anabelle have a moment – a moment of what am I doing with my life? Cleaning out fish tanks and emptying bins of juice boxes from school field trips is not a career. What do I want?

In the crisp city air, a few bus stops from her apartment block, she thought of her life. It wasn’t bad: she had a nice place, a stable job – oh, wait, no, cross that one off – and a loving family.

Heston Chadwick. Her thoughts strayed fondly to her odd, odd neighbour. One condition of moving into her apartment when she had done had been keeping an eye on Heston. His aunt owned the building – some small-time building mogul – and she was big on both charity work and family. The entire apartment block was filled with people like Heston, men and women in need of extra support whilst being independent – the only reason Anabelle had got a room was because she was the daughter of an uncle who was best friends with blah-blah-blah. Somehow, she was connected to Heston’s family, and in the city? Connections were everything.

Moving into Apartment 5b had been an interesting curveball in Anabelle’s life. She’d been given a list of tenants’ requirements, which was now stuck to her fridge with a lone, magnetic, pink letter ‘l’.

Tenant’s Agreement for Falgrove Apartments, date: February 2nd 2006.

1. Act responsibly: no overtly loud and disruptive behaviour between 9pm and 9am. Please be conscious of other tenants in the time not bracketed.

2. Grocery deliveries can be made through Falgrove – to do this visit the website given to you upon move-in.

3. For those of you on floors 4 and 5, your fellow tenants may have specific requirements – please help your fellow tenants in any way they might need if you are available.

4. Apartments 2b and 5a do not collect mail – if someone is trying to deliver a parcel, you may need to step in and leave outside these respective doors. The building is otherwise secure, so you need not worry about anyone stealing mail.

5. Your doormen/woman are either Stan (Monday-Wednesday), Derek (Thursday-Saturday) or Patty (Sunday).

6. In the event of a fire or emergency requiring emergency services, please call the numbers on the Sheet 2.

7. Pets are allowed, but please alert Falgrove – pets must be house-trained.

8. If you have any extra requirements, please do not hesitate to get in contact with Falgrove. Any numbers or email addresses can be found on Sheet 2 or 3.

Heston Chadwick was Anabelle’s neighbour. As far as she knew the other two apartments on the fifth floor were vacant. A few times Anabelle had had to refer to that list of instructions, picking parcels up for Heston and deflecting people who knocked on his door. So far it had worked out smoothly, and despite the curiousness of Falgrove, Anabelle was glad she lived there.

2nd November 2014

Anabelle Glass sat opposite her boss. Her overweight, sweaty-faced boss. For several weeks now, the office had had a competition running as to when the white shirt he had on every Tuesday and Wednesday would burst open. The buttons, straining further than ever, looked like they could quite easily spring from his shirt placket, fly across the short expanse of desk space between them and hit her on the head.

“… I like you, Anabelle. I really do.” Sigh. “But this is twice now. In a week.”

His chest hairs were poking through the holes between chest and shirt, wiry things, from what Anabelle could see, and not at all attractive. Also, he had a piece of broccoli – spinach? – stuck between his crooked front teeth and it made everything he was saying that little bit more repulsive.

“…I mean, your mother would…”

And there he went again. Anabelle’s conscience sighed and shook her head, knowing this particular thread of conversation by heart. Anabelle’s mother had been a vital part of the company – blah, blah – Anabelle was not doing much for the Glass reputation – blah, blah – didn’t Anabelle think her legacy was worth more than this? Blah, blah.

He’d stopped talking. Shit, Anabelle thought. How long had he been waiting for her to say something?

“Um,” she cleared her throat and fidgeted a little on the spot, twiddling fingers and thumbs together. “Mr Lloyd – ”

“Jeff, dear,” he smiled, as though they were having a friendly chat, rather than a this-is-the-time-I-will-actually-fire-you chat.

“Yeah, Jeff. I know I’ve seen the inside of this office a few too many times…” She trailed off, not quite knowing what she was going to say. An excuse? She had none. An apology? Again, she had none.

Jeff sighed, the warm breath wafting her way unpleasantly. “I think we both know that you’re just not… meshing with the company, dear.” Anabelle raised her eyebrow at that, but Jeff carried on talking. “I’ve let you get away with quite a bit, when you think about it – but it’s gone too far. We’re going to have to…” Here, he stuttered, wiped his brow with the back of his hand and took a breath, like it was paining him. “We’re going to have to let you go. Grab your things and go to HR for your last pay check.” The last few words tripped over themselves and he turned from Anabelle to his computer.

Outside the tall, glassy building, clutching a half-full cardboard box with a sheaf of paper and a personalised desk organiser inside, Anabelle paused. She was undeniably having a ‘moment’. Prior to her job with Lloyd & Co., she’d worked for an aquarium, and occasionally they’d have a child with one of those final-wish companies wanting to swim with dolphins or sharks. Watching the smiles on their faces when they had that wish granted always made Anabelle have a moment – a moment of what am I doing with my life? Cleaning out fish tanks and emptying bins of juice boxes from school field trips is not a career. What do I want?

In the crisp city air, a few bus stops from her apartment block, she thought of her life. It wasn’t bad: she had a nice place, a stable job – oh, wait, no, cross that one off – and a loving family.

Heston Chadwick. Her thoughts strayed fondly to her odd, odd neighbour. One condition of moving into her apartment when she had done had been keeping an eye on Heston. His aunt owned the building – some small-time building mogul – and she was big on both charity work and family. The entire apartment block was filled with people like Heston, men and women in need of extra support whilst being independent – the only reason Anabelle had got a room was because she was the daughter of an uncle who was best friends with blah-blah-blah. Somehow, she was connected to Heston’s family, and in the city? Connections were everything.

Moving into Apartment 5b had been an interesting curveball in Anabelle’s life. She’d been given a list of tenants’ requirements, which was now stuck to her fridge with a lone, magnetic, pink letter ‘l’.

Tenant’s Agreement for Falgrove Apartments, date: February 2nd 2006.

1. Act responsibly: no overtly loud and disruptive behaviour between 9pm and 9am. Please be conscious of other tenants in the time not bracketed.

2. Grocery deliveries can be made through Falgrove – to do this visit the website given to you upon move-in.

3. For those of you on floors 4 and 5, your fellow tenants may have specific requirements – please help your fellow tenants in any way they might need if you are available.

4. Apartments 2b and 5a do not collect mail – if someone is trying to deliver a parcel, you may need to step in and leave outside these respective doors. The building is otherwise secure, so you need not worry about anyone stealing mail.

5. Your doormen/woman are either Stan (Monday-Wednesday), Derek (Thursday-Saturday) or Patty (Sunday).

6. In the event of a fire or emergency requiring emergency services, please call the numbers on the Sheet 2.

7. Pets are allowed, but please alert Falgrove – pets must be house-trained.

8. If you have any extra requirements, please do not hesitate to get in contact with Falgrove. Any numbers or email addresses can be found on Sheet 2 or 3.

Heston Chadwick was Anabelle’s neighbour. As far as she knew the other two apartments on the fifth floor were vacant. A few times Anabelle had had to refer to that list of instructions, picking parcels up for Heston and deflecting people who knocked on his door. So far it had worked out smoothly, and despite the curiousness of Falgrove, Anabelle was glad she lived there.

5th April 2007

The morning of the 5th of April in 2007 started the same way it usually would: ventilation.

Spring and summer had always blurred into one long, uncomfortable period for Heston. The apartment’s ventilation was a more laborious task and he had to keep the windows open for hours on end, unlike the quick turnaround the autumnal and wintery months let him have.

As Heston made his first cup of tea of the day, his fingers dancing across the counter to the milk, sugar, tea bags, the slam of a door reverberated through the building, stilling his hands.

Whilst interruption was something Heston detested – especially whilst he was doing something as routine as making tea, which was a timed activity – he had long ago had to think through his priorities, and recording his apartment building’s happenings in his notebook was pivotal. So, he left his tea in favour of heading to the front door, where he peered through the peephole, house martin notebook in hand and rollerball pen poised.

Footsteps. Heston’s heartbeat accelerated with a rush of adrenaline: where would he stop? Who would he be visiting today? Did he have a delivery? Was he a guest of another tenant? Standing behind his door, Heston waited in anxious excitement.

A woman appeared at the very edge of the peephole: tall, thin, thick black boots with several silver buckles, a dark jacket and a short skirt. Heston took all of this in with laser-like precision, his years of watching letting him see much in moments.

The woman paused between Heston’s door and Anabelle Glass’s. She rummaged through a ragged brown satchel hanging off her arm until she pulled out a crumpled piece of lined paper. Heston took this moment to note more of her appearance. To his previous annotations, he added:

6. She has a very white face – make up? – and very dark purple-red lips.

7. She is chewing gum.

8. Her hair is dark brown and curly with pink streaks.

9. She has an eyebrow piercing: two balls on either side of her left brow.

10. Her nails are long and fake, painted dark red. The colour almost matches her lips.

Bent over his paper a moment, Heston almost dropped both pad and paper when the door in front of him vibrated with the force of a knock. Three knocks, to be precise – quick raps, impatient.

Heston gulped.

There were several long moments, then.

In this time, the girl in the corridor started to chew her gum faster and planted a hand on her hip as she scrutinised the peephole. She didn’t get paid an awful lot, and it wasn’t by the hour, it was by the visit, so she didn’t exactly want to stand in a dirty, stale-smelling hallway for hours on end.

In this time, Heston had contemplated his options. Where pretending not to be in was the most obvious option, there was something about walking away from the hallway when it was occupied that went against everything he believed. Heston was a meticulous journalist – how could he record what was happening when he wasn’t there? His head had started to swim and his vision was blurring a little, but he couldn’t help but lean into the lens – he couldn’t leave, though he didn’t want to stay.

“Dude, I can see you moving, seriously.”

Heston jumped at the sound of her voice and impulsively, the fingers clutching his pen moved across the page:

11. Deeper voice than expected.

How could she see him? Maybe his shadow underneath the door – this was something Heston had learned in previous years, along with the horrifying realisation there was nothing he could do to fix it. Putting fabric underneath to block it out made the apartment even stuffier and got in the way when he was trying to use the fisheye lens.

“Dude,” she said again, glaring at the door. “I need you to sign for this package. I can’t fucking leave it in this shithole of a corridor.” Her gum-chewing was getting faster and faster, it was mesmerising in a less-than-pleasant sort of a way.

He cleared his throat a little, though it felt like his whole voice had deserted him.

The girl was tapping her foot. “Look, you either sign for this package or I have to call my supervisor and I don’t get paid if it don’t get delivered, you get me?”

Heston’s hands were twitching, shaking his pen and notebook in agitation. He opened his mouth to say something through the door but couldn’t get any words out. They were there, on his tongue, teasing him with their closeness – but they wouldn’t leave the safety of his mouth. They refused, stubbornly, frustratingly, infuriatingly.

“For fuck’s sake,” the girl was muttering, digging through that satchel of hers again. This time, she came out with a shiny flip-up mobile phone, which she started pressing buttons on.

Heston’s heart was beating so hard that his pulse was everywhere and it was all he could hear. He was envisioning her talking to her supervisor, rallying the troops – envisioning more people coming to try and get him to sign for the stupid package. What was in the package, Heston couldn’t even remember. At the moment, whatever it was didn’t seem remotely worth it.

“Hi Ron, yeah sorry – I’m at my first delivery of the day… No, no shit… He won’t open the door.” Pause. “Of course I’ve fucking told hi- yes. Yes, I know he’s in there.” She kicked Heston’s door, making Heston jump back and sweat a little more. “Jesus fuc- no. Yeah, well that’s why I’m ringing you, isn’t it?” Pause. “Ron.”

Heston wasn’t doing so well on the other side of the door. His notebook and pen were on the floor and his hands were running themselves over his head, gripping strands of hair and pulling – he could feel hair coming out, but the pain didn’t make him stop. His eyes were blurry, head painful, throat parched, limbs heavy-

She kicked the door again.

Heston jumped again – and a whimper tore free of his mouth.

“Yes, I just fucking heard him. Or his dog. What-the-fuck-ever, I know he’s there. What do you want me to do? You could-”

She broke off and from his position curled up on the floor, where Heston had crumpled to somewhere in the last few moments, Heston’s head lifted.

The door across the hallway had opened and the soft, familiar tones of Anabelle Glass from Apartment 5b managed to penetrate the fog in Heston’s head. His hands still shook, but a little less. His breath still came in short bursts, but he could breathe. His back and underarms were still damp with sweat, but he didn’t feel so uncomfortable.

“I can sign for Mr Chadwick,” she was saying.

“The neighbour’s here, Ron. She’ll sign – yeah, whatever. Fuck off.” The sound of the phone snapping shut. “That would be cool of you.”

Moments of silence. Heston stayed on the floor, ears straining. Though the observer in him hated that he wasn’t watching, he felt like he couldn’t stand. His bones wouldn’t hold him up.

“Thanks,” the girl was saying. Retreating footsteps.

A soft knock on Heston’s door – Anabelle’s knock. “Mr Chadwick, I’ll leave this on your doorstep for you. I’m going back into my apartment now. Hope you’re okay.”

Footsteps. Apartment 5b’s door shutting. Quiet.

The quiet was a reassuring quiet. Heston stood, shakily. All around him, clocks ticked and everything sat exactly how it was supposed to sit. He took a breath and undid the chain on his door, slid open the locks above and below it, stretched an arm through the crack in the door he made by opening. His hand felt around blindly, before coming into contact with a small, flat package on the floor.

With the locks firmly in place and the door shut and Heston sitting in his armchair in front of his television, Heston turned the package over in his hands and used an envelope cutter to open it. Nestled between two layers of bubble wrap and with a slip of paper from the seller – saying thank you – lay a tiny ceramic Maneki-neko, a Chinese knocking cat.

Slightly hysterical laughter bubbled up from Heston’s stomach as he released the cat from its protective packaging and turned it over in his hands. It had been the closest Heston had ever gotten to an impulse-buy, clicking the ‘buy now’ icon next to the cat on the website he’d found it on. Some lucky charm, he thought, continuing to turn it over and over between his fingers, stroking over its smooth surface.

4th November 2014

Heston’s eyes opened at the same time they did every morning. The apartment was too hot, climbing degree by degree, as it would until Heston began the daunting task of ventilating it. Had Heston been a different man, the problem may have been solved years ago; perhaps the air conditioning needed a tweak or there was something wrong with the building’s pipework.

Ventilating Apartment 5a was daunting for many reasons. Hot air rises, were the words Heston remembered when he thought back to his science classes at school – and they were the only words he could think to explain why his apartment got as hot as it did. Heston’s apartment was on the top floor, had one window and a sky light, and also happened to sit above a particularly broken set of pipes, which worked to heat the entire floor.

Every morning at twenty minutes to nine, Heston would wind open the skylight and wedge open the broken living room window with a thick, dog-eared dictionary – he had made his peace with this by ordering a second copy, which was used for what dictionaries were traditionally used for.

The act of opening the apartment windows was terrifying to Heston. The breeze offered both cool relief from the overpowering heat and a sharp reminder that he was no longer as closed off to the world as he had been moments before. Which is why, even as he turned the handle to open the skylight above his head, he kept the blind closed; though it restricted and lengthened the procedure, it made it that little bit easier. The same went for the living room window: he snuck a hand between curtains, opened the handle, used the dictionary to keep it wedged open and withdrew his hand as quickly as he could. A practised manoeuvre.

On the morning of the fourth of November, Heston felt particularly exposed. His dreams that night had been haunted by huge, bald, muscled men and slamming doors. It was raining outside, too, which always made ventilating the apartment even more stressful than it always was – renegade raindrops would somehow find ways to slip through the tiny crack in the skylight and past the dictionary and into the living room.

He slipped from his bed quietly, glancing at the clock next to his bed to triple-check the time. This particular clock was one of his favourites: a dark Persian green (the colour he’d had to look up in one of those fabric colour charts you could order from carpet shops) with gilded edges and a silk panel just behind its slender hands, so that instead of the mechanical tick, with each passing second the clock would let out a soft whoosh.

In the few seconds between twenty minutes to nine and nineteen minutes to nine, Heston, sweaty-palmed, unwound the skylight and wedged the dog-eared dictionary into place. A bead of rain on the back of his left hand had his breath quickening, and he was in the bathroom washing it off before it could settle on his skin. Two squirts of lavender soap, two squirts of sanitising hand wash.

Something about the day felt awkward already – Anabelle Glass still hadn’t returned and the police hadn’t been by to check the break-in. Why would they, though? Heston asked himself, it wasn’t as if he’d called it in – as far as he knew, Heston was the only one who’d witnessed the whole thing.

Heston didn’t deal well with awkward. His stiff-collared shirts felt too close to his skin and his socks felt as though they were cutting his circulation off at the ankles. The thin coverage of hair on his head stuck to his scalp and his fingers wouldn’t stay still – they twitched and fumbled with parts of the apartment he’d never held issue with before. Suddenly, the television wasn’t at the right angle. The forks and knives needed to switch place in their draws. No, they didn’t. He switched them back.

Lunchtime came and went, leaving Heston no less agitated. At thirteen minutes past twelve, his computer pinged with an email. He hadn’t been expecting any emails – the last thing Heston had ordered had been a pack of Pilot P-700s, the only pen he found worthy of writing in his house martin notebooks, and they had been delivered a week ago. He had all spam accounts disabled and layers and layers of malware on his computer in order to stop the unexpected.

The email:

Mr Chadwick,

I am writing on behalf of your local parish. We are having a local cake sale in our parish centre on the 12th of November – and you’re invited!

We’ll be raising money for the restoration of the church vestry as children’s liturgy has had to be moved elsewhere when we found a leak – God bless Father Michael for allowing the liturgy to take place in the church lounge.

The parish welcomes the community’s support in this fundraiser and any donations are absolutely welcome!

We hope to see you there!

Yours, faithfully,

Agnes Prior,

Choir Director at Our Lady and St. Joseph’s Church.

Heston wrung his hands together, not quite knowing what to do. Whilst simply deleting the email was a simple enough solution, he didn’t like that it had appeared in the first place. Heston was meticulous in ensuring his privacy was kept just that: private. Somehow, he’d been infiltrated. By a church, of all things.

When Heston had been a child – a time he rarely reflected on – his mother had tried to teach him the value of religion by taking him to a local church. The sensation of the bread on his tongue hadn’t worn off for hours, and the sharp tang of wine had held his face hostage in a grimace for just as long. The prayers had made no sense and when Heston verbalised this, louder than was appropriate, as they approached the priest for communion, he and his mother had been pierced by eyes from every side.

His mother had never taken him back.

The email was a sharp reminder of that moment and Heston didn’t like it. He didn’t like revisiting his past, especially something as invasive as unpleasant tastes and textures – it was almost as if he was experiencing the communion all over again.

The email was led to the bin icon on the desktop screen. Heston paced away from the computer and towards the armchair in front of the television. In his trepidation, he didn’t hear the footsteps in the corridor – though they were notably quieter than the previous day’s heavier visitor.

Just as Heston sat, the owner of those footsteps stopped outside Apartment 5a and raised a fist.

House Martin Book 1, Page 12.

The twelfth page of Heston’s singular used house martin notebook contained the following:

A description of Anabelle Glass:

1. She has shoulder-length black hair. Her hair is almost straight. Sometimes it looks glossy, sometimes it looks greasy.

2. She wears turtleneck jumpers almost exclusively.

3. Her favourite turtleneck jumper is a dark green colour, there is a rip in it at the back.

4. She has a red scarf.

5. She has a black leather jacket (Question: real or fake leather? Does Anabelle Glass care about the leather trade?)

6. She wears jeans. I have never seen her wear a dress or a skirt.

7. I have never seen her wear a hat.

8. She bites her nails.

The rest of the notebook page was empty. Sometimes, Heston flicked to that page and read its contents, memorising the already-memorised details of the woman across the hall. Other times, when he had the notebook in his hands, he avoided it with single-mindedness, not wanting to think about the fact that he would never meet the woman he’d so painstakingly brought to life on his pages.

3rd November 2014

It was the next morning and Anabelle Glass still hadn’t returned home. Heston Chadwick knew this because the slam of her door hadn’t woken him up. That, and he had been making frequent trips to the fisheye lens fixed into his apartment door.

The corridor outside Heston’s apartment wasn’t something he particularly liked to look at. Its reddish rug, of which one could only slightly see from the looking glass, was fraying and dirtied from a thousand footsteps. Its walls were timelessly damaged – did they used to be cream? Grey? White? They were now mottled with age and misuse, edged with green mould, dirtied with fingerprints and layers and layers of picked-off wallpaper. The view from the looking glass had one redeeming feature, and that was the apartment door straight opposite Heston’s: The Home of Anabelle Glass.

It was closed more often than not, empty more often than not. In fact, Heston had never actually seen anyone but Anabelle Glass enter or leave her apartment – but when she did, he paid attention. What he knew of her apartment, what he knew of life beyond his own apartment and that small sliver of hallway, was recorded into one of Heston’s many notepads. This particular notepad was a teal one, decorated with small house martins and the long spindly branches they perched on. It was one of three house martin notebooks Heston owned and the only one which had been used as of yet. On its cover, Heston had penned:

Beyond Apartment 5a

And inside the booklet only a few pages had been used.

Heston wasn’t one for wasting ink or paper. Or thoughts. His apartment reflected that, with its mountains of old television magazines, boxes of cat litter for the cat he no longer had and empty mason jars. The mason jars in particular looked small and sad, sitting in their cupboard, waiting for Mrs Lewis – who would never return for them – to come and pick them up and fill them once again with a rich lemon curd or a ‘marmalade with a twist’. She’d leave them outside his door once a week on Tuesdays, until she didn’t.

The bronze-rimmed clock beside the door – one of many strategically placed timepieces to grace the walls of the apartment –told Heston it was thirty eight minutes past ten. And no Anabelle Glass. This worried him for several reasons, reasons he then decided to write into the house martin book:

Reasons to be concerned over Anabelle Glass’s mysterious disappearance:

1. It is midmorning.

2. Her phone has rung and has not been answered.

3. It is a weekday and on weekdays Anabelle has to go to work (aside: workplace still unknown).

Heston set down his pen and notebook and checked his wristwatch. It was an ancient thing that worked less than it broke and trapped his arm hairs inside its strap sometimes. Mid-morning meant that he could make the switch from Rooibos to English Breakfast tea, switching cups and teaspoons. This wasn’t wasteful, because Heston would return to these cups once it was mid-afternoon.

The door across the hall remained shut and the corridor stayed empty.

Several hours later, Heston heard footsteps down the corridor. He left his book where it was and moved to the looking glass. House martin booklet left shirt pocket, where he’d kept it, thinking that yes, I may need this later and pen was poised.

A large man, muscled in places muscles didn’t usually reside, and with hair cut so close to his scalp it was a wonder his skin hadn’t been nicked in the process, strode into view. The man paused outside Anabelle Glass’s door and from the other side of the looking glass, Heston’s throat went dry.

This man was a complete stranger. In all of Heston’s many notebooks, particularly in his house martin collection, there had never been mention of this huge, almost-bald man. His hands were raised to door level and he was standing at a slight angle – serendipitous for Heston’s viewpoint – and began to work at Anabelle Glass’s lock. Those thick fingers looked like they shouldn’t have been able to do anything nimble, let alone jiggle some sort of lock-picking tools in such a manner as to open her door – but open it they did.

Heston watched as the huge man stepped into the room, dwarfing the doorframe comically. Then, for many long moments, Heston was left to watch the closed door, as though the worn paint and scratch marks on it could tell him what was going on behind it. Faint noises travelled across the floors and to Heston’s ears: the man moving heavily about her apartment and the scraping of furniture. A pang of jealousy had Heston clutching his pen a little tighter – this man, this intruder, was seeing the inside of the apartment Heston had been preoccupied with for years. Where Heston had barely made it past the front door in his findings, this man had barged his way in and was seeing what Heston had imagined seeing for so long.

Not for the first time, Heston hated that he couldn’t leave Apartment 5a.

Three minutes and thirty two seconds passed before the man returned. He had a thick wad of files in his hands, a determination in his eyes and lines etched into his forehead. As he came through the door Heston could see his face perfectly, but only looked for a moment before trying to see past the huge body and into the elusive Apartment 5b. A wasted attempt: the only thing visible was shadow-work and the ghostly shapes of furniture.

The man shut the door behind him, the action making the muscles in his biceps coil like a snake moving underneath his skin, and stilled on his feet. He was looking at Heston’s door, now. Heston’s apartment. Throat thick with something unnameable, blocked by a tongue too big for it and teeth that didn’t feel quite right, Heston held his breath and his skin broke out in shivers whilst being far too hot at the same time – the hairs on every single body part were standing on end. Breathing? Fast. Too fast. It was eerie: did this intruder know Heston was watching? How could he? He couldn’t – but he watched Heston’s door for several long moments before moving back down the corridor the way he’d originally come.

Within the walls of Apartment 5a, Heston slid to the floor and clutched at his corduroy trousers, trying to calm himself. He lifted a hand in front of his face and couldn’t keep it from shaking. It was quiet, save the ticking of many clocks and the uneven, ragged breathing of the man on the floor.