but in this completely great and wonderful way.

in a wondering way.

i am putting it here so that i can always remember it, and have it to read, in the context of what's going on in my life now, and then, hopefully, remember how i feel right now.

"this is a silly story, and not really what was in mind, but.

Mr. 904, the man that had been living in the northwest corner of the 9th floor for the past five years, was the first to arrive. He knocked on room 702 and, not receiving an answer to his knocking, waited. Ten minutes later there was still no answer to his knocking but an additional 27 people had joined him in the hallway on the 7th floor. Although the 28 people didn't fully know each other, they knew that they were all residents of the Feather Heights building.

The door to 702 was knocked on a few more times and still there was no response. Since there were so many people crammed into the small hallway, they naturally began talking to one another. Each person standing there had received a postcard invitation via postal mail several days earlier. They all had a card in their hands and so they started to compare the postcards.

The common text that appeared on all of the cards was "Birthday party at 2pm on 4/6. Please bring this card for admittance." Beyond that each card was different. Some were covered with blue magic marker, some with red paint. Some had a 37 cent Houdini stamp on them while others had a 34 cent Frida Kahlo stamp. One had eight 3 cent stamps on it. Another had a 1995 Love stamp.

Each postcard also contained a small portion of a page from a book, glued to the spot to the left of the address. One card contained a paragraph from The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer. Another contained a chunk of text from Harriet the Spy. There were some sentences from Invisible Man on one and a few definitions from The American Heritage Dictionary on another. One card had some large text from The Cat in the Hat and another had some small text from Philosophical Investigations.

Additionally, each card had one single word hand-written in the lower-right corner of the backside. A few cards simply contained the word "the" or "a" but most of them had more unique words: "paint" "everlasting" "lonely" "pip" "batteries" "Ashby" "slippery" and so forth. Ms. 302 felt the need to point out to some others around her that the word on her card was "ant." She was terrified of all bugs she said, especially ants, and was extremely offended that "ant" was written on her card. She told Mr. 303 that she wasn't even going to show up but that the paragraph in french that was on her card intrigued her.

As the residents talked to each other it became clear that none of them actually knew the person living at 702. So they started comparing notes. Mr. 512 mentioned that he was pretty certain he rode the elevator with her a few weeks back. He claimed she was rather tall. But then Mr. 310 chimed in, stating that she was short. Ms. 302, done with the ant talk, said that 702 had short hair. But Ms. 808 said it was long. Multiple conversation ensued. Someone said that 702 always left in the morning but someone else said that 702 left the building around 1pm. A younger male recalled seeing her carrying in bags from Target while someone else recalled seeing her with several bottles in a brown paper bag. Mr. 512 said that she was shy during their elevator ride, but Mr. 106 countered that she was pretty loud coming back into the building last weekend.

The residents in the hallway really couldn't agree on one single thing.

They kept knocking but there was still no response. They did though hear a meowing cat. Five of the people standing in the hallway were cat owners and they started talking amongst themselves. They soon came to the conclusion that the meowing that could be heard was a relaxed meow, that the cat was neither panicked nor without food.

Mr. 712, who had moved into the building just two weeks ago and had yet to see 702, put his ear against the door. He could hear music. What was playing he couldn't determine, so everyone took turns placing their ear against the door. Someone said it was Otis Redding. But but the time Ms. 808 put her ear on the door, the music had changed and she stated that now there was some Charlie Parker song playing.

They knocked harder and still there was no response. They threw out ideas: perhaps she was in the bathroom, perhaps she had fallen asleep, perhaps she went out to get some last minute party favors, perhaps she had fallen down while attempting to change a lightbulb, perhaps a million things. It was suggested that perhaps the apartment manager should be contacted and that he could open up the door. But no one wanted to take that step. No one in the crowd really liked the apartment manager and they rationalized that if he did show up and if he did find her then he would probably stick around for the party and no one wanted to get stuck in a conversation with him.

At 2:30pm the nearby church bells did the partial clanging they do every half hour during the day and this prompted some of the people to realize how late it was. Mr. 214 left to go watch a football game that was going to start soon. Ms. 908 left to go check her email.

The minutes went by and more and more people left. Occasionally the remaining people would knock once again but there would never be a response except for the slight meow. As the residents left the hallway they tossed their postcard to the floor, disgusted that they had wasted a good thirty or more minutes of their important lives.

At 2:55pm, Mr. 303 found himself all alone in the hallway. He gathered up the 27 cards littering the floor and flipped through them. Then he started to get some ideas. He took out all of the red cards and examined the corner words on them, hoping that perhaps they could be rearranged to form a sentence. But no, it wasn't possible. He then started to put the words in order of room number but after getting out and looking at the cards that Mr. 106, Ms. 108, and Mr. 201 received he decided against that.

Two seconds later though his head was suddenly filled with a clear idea of what to do. He put Ms. 908's card on the floor and then put Mr. 904's card to the right of it and kept putting down the cards in order of descending room number until he had a line of nearly 14 feet of postcards. Then he carefully piled the cards together and read the 28 corner words, starting with Mr. 904's card. It had been ages since his mouth had uttered such satisfying sentences.

He crouched down, took out the card he personally received (the one with the White Noise text on it), and, when it happened to be precisely 3:03pm, slipped the postcard all the way underneath the door. He stayed in that position and listened more carefully than he had ever listened to anything before. After waiting a very long minute he heard one more meow and then he heard the music stop. He smiled, stood up, walked back to room 303 via the stairwell, and immediately took a nap.