FRIDAY 14TH

WAITING

He was sitting on the floor and leaning against the reinforced glass was outside his flat as I left for my flat the first time.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Alright?’ he said, though I know it’s not a question.
When I got back a couple of hours later he was still there.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Alright?’ he said.
A couple more hours passed until I left my flat the second time.
‘Hello,’ I said, and by way of development waiting for the lift, ‘Still there?’
He smiled and got up slowly pulling his coat around him as he walked toward me.
‘Lost your key?’ I said.
‘What it is,’ he said, ‘is I leant my key to my niece’ – she’s his niece? – ‘and she said she’d be back and I said to her, I said, “Don’t lock the bottom lock,” but she did and now I can’t get in so I’ve got to wait for her to get back and I thought it’d be this morning but she still isn’t back yet and I’ve been waiting the whole day…’
‘I noticed,’ I said, and the lift arrived and I said, ‘I’ve got to go.’
As the door of the lift slid closed I saw him walk back to where he’d wait for how long I don’t know because he wasn’t there when I got back later.