An Unexpected Guest (part 1)

The doorbell broke the silence in an otherwise uneventful night. This peaked his interest and I will explain it to you in a moment or two. You see, the Tans lived in a government subsidized flat that was thirty levels high. Each level had four units, which housed four different families. In a country of five million people dispersed across seven hundred square kilometers of land (which is roughly the size of New York City), privacy was a rare commodity and the four different families held each other’s privacy in the highest regard. If they met each other on the street they would pretend not to know each other. If they met each other in the elevator, they would greet each other with a silence that was left hanging like a door ajar. These people weren’t neighbors; the term implied a certain level of intimacy between them. They were simply people who lived on the same level. Such was the importance ascribed to the unwritten social code of privacy.

Now, here is another interesting fact: if the doorbell rang in the late morning or in the afternoon, he would probably be less interested at greeting the person at the door. He might not even go to the door and pretend that the whole family was out. This window was a generally agreed upon period of time when the sacred code of privacy did not apply and families were allowed to be disturbed. Eager church youths from the nearby ministry would practise door-to-door evangelism during this time, but he was already saved by the blood of Christ and wasn’t interested in being saved again. It could also be annoying twelve year olds or “aunties” who, in his eyes, preyed on the residents’ innate compassion for the disadvantaged and sold whatever they could get their hands on for the day; yoghurt, ice cream, chips or packets of tissue at exorbitant prices. He didn’t buy any of that, in every sense of the word.

But it was eleven ’o clock in the evening. There would be no overzealous preacher or conniving little children waiting at the door.

It had to be someone he knew. A friend. But he was not expecting anyone. Vicky or mom. Though they already had the keys to the place. And in his wildest imagination he thought of old friends bearing bottles of wine, waiting to rekindle relationships that had rusted with age or gang members who were looking for an opportune moment to break into his house. The suspense was unnerving.

 He could hear the shuffling of footsteps that were coarse and loose. The person grew impatient.

He squinted through the keyhole but all he could see was a vague silhouette of a well-built man in a tight black crew neck. His left arm was covered in a smudge of rainforest green and crimson hues.

Slowly and cautiously, he let open a space to take a closer look at the man.