When Rent Is Due

They said the apartment was a steal. Top floor, quiet neighbors,

no history worth mentioning. But history doesn't disappear, it waits.

Every night at 2:17 AM, the pipes begin to knock. Not randomly,

but rhythmically, like someone counting, like someone remembering. The walls breathe when the lights

are off. Paint curls away from the plaster, revealing faint fingerprints beneath,

layered, overlapping, as if dozens of people tried to leave at

once and failed. I checked the records. Families moved in during the COVID-19

downturn and recessions, single mothers, people who seek to save money, elderly tenants on