Margen
The neighbour below banged on the ceiling with something hard, a stick or a broom handle, every time she walked across her living room at night.
At first she apologised in her head and learned to go about on tiptoe. But the banging started coming even when she was still, lying down, holding her breath.
Fed up, one night she went down the stairs ready to apologise in person and put an end to it.
The night porter found her on the landing, hand raised in front of a door with no number.
"That flat has been empty for twenty years, madam. Since the fire. Nobody has lived down there since."
She lowered her hand slowly.
"Down there?" she said. "I live on the first floor. There is nothing below me."
The banging, then, began to come from above.