Prompt 3599, Week 11: He pondered how the people below him watched t.v. so deep into the early morning...

                It’s three in the morning and the music in the apartment next door is turned up just loud enough that I can hear it through the walls, keeping me from sleeping. Nothing new, and I lay here wishing I was one of those people who needed the television on while they fall asleep, the type of person who could sleep through anything. I’m not. I need my bedroom dark and it has to be completely quiet. I groan as I look at the clock and think of all the things I have to do tomorrow and am happy I already bought an energy drink for the morning.

                Tonight they’re playing a game. I can hear them cheer occasionally but usually they fight. None of them are good losers and for them, the video game is more than a game. It is their life. They talk about the characters they’ve created like they’re real people and sometimes they analyze Magic cards like they truly believe these Fantasy creatures really exist.

 The three of them cram into their tiny, one-bedroom apartment, rarely leaving except to walk to the store for cigarettes. They sleep all day and outside their door, they’ve posted a sign that gives strict instructions to leave them alone during the day. Nobody is allowed to knock between the hours of 8 am and 5 pm unless they are expecting you.  At night people walk from all over town and trudge up the stairs to buy bags of overpriced pot and the smell of marijuana burning lingers in the hall.

Sometimes when I see them outside our building they talk about finding jobs but there’s always a reason things don’t work out. The place isn’t hiring right now, they have too much experience to work somewhere, and my favorite: they can’t work because they have anger issues and have a hard time being around other people. One of them, the girl, claims she can’t work because of her height, she’s legally a Little Person, but it’s hard to see how her height restricts her. She seems to walk fine and she is 4 feet ten inches, not so short that she couldn’t do most things but  she seems content doing nothing at all.