"Well, if you don't like it you can always go and find somewhere else to live."
Your cutting tone didn't go unnoticed. Van's eyes narrowed a little, the smirk falling quickly away but not for long. He folded his arms across his chest, fixing you wit...
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It was a quiet neighbourhood and that's how you liked it. No troublesome neighbours quarrelling over garden fences, no domestic dramas and no disrespectful residents throwing late night parties until ungodly hours. Even the children that lived on your street were well-behaved. It was calm and peaceful... some might say dull and uneventful but not you. You liked the quiet. It was perfect.
That was until he moved in next door.
You think back to a week ago. You'd been brewing your first coffee of the day when the screeching sound of brakes and a noisy, tinny car stereo had cut through the quiet sounds of the morning. You'd just expected it to be a delivery driver so you didn't rush to your kitchen window. You weren't nosey like some of the curtain-twitchers who lived on the small cul-de-sac so you didn't pay any heed when the loud metallic thunk of several vehicle doors slamming emanated from right outside your house. It was the voices that got your attention. Loud and brash with a Northern lilt, spoken at such a volume that from your spot over the far side of the kitchen you could hear every single word that was uttered. You didn't even have the windows open.
"That's gotta be the longest journey of my life. Thank fuck we're here at last!"
"Don't know what you're complaining about. You weren't bloody driving!"
"I did my bit! I was navigating."
A loud, hearty laugh.
"You call that navigating? You sent us the wrong way down the M1 for thirty miles!"
"Well? If you'd have bought that new van with the built-in sat-nav you wouldn't need me to direct you, would you? Honestly mate, I don't know how this old heap of junk got us here in one piece."
"Well it did, didn't it? And here we are... home sweet home!"
WHAT?
You'd crossed over to the window in a flash, craning your neck to see outside without revealing your presence.
There were two men on the driveway of the house next door, one was lugging a huge guitar-shaped flight case and an amp across the gravel and you watched as the other disappeared behind the open doors of the beat-up transit van and emerged with what looked like the biggest speaker you'd ever seen in your life. They were both dressed in black, skinny ripped jeans, threadbare jackets and boots with unkempt manes of scruffy hair. They had that kind of just rolled out of bed and on to the stage, wanna-be rockstar look about them and your heart sank as they jostled each other and unloaded box after box, the calmness of the morning punctuated by their colourful language and The Strokes 'Juicebox' that was still blaring out of the van's speakers.
You lived in a semi-detached and the house adjoined to yours had stood empty for the last month. The owner was also your landlord and you'd been trying to contact her over the last few weeks to no avail to see if there was any news about new occupants. You'd been hoping for an elderly couple or maybe some young professionals, neighbours who'd blend in well in this sleepy suburban area. Not this pair of misfits who were now trampling carelessly all over your freshly planted spring flowers.
