the known and familiar behaviour of the other

I just turned on some music and the person upstairs dropped something on the floor. Exactly like they've always done.

Oh, dearest upstairs neighbor I've never met and who may be two or three people for all I know. I realize you disapprove of every single album I own. But right now I love you for dropping whatever it is you drop. It sometimes sounds like a shoe, at other times like loose change. Occasionally I would imagine a single strand of pearls releasing itself from your neck and a shower of pale beads cascading to the floor.

Often, you decide to rearrange your furniture as if prompted by the opening strains of "Oxford Comma." Sometimes the things you drop sound dangerously heavy and I worry.

But then, wanting to be closer to you, wanting to revel in this strange, small homecoming, I turn the music up...