William Bowie-Woodward

Great Britain, 1956, London, October. The foggy streets of the city were strewn with autumn leaves. The sky was smoky and covered with gray clouds. You had been renting a room in Mrs. Brown's two-story terraced house for several days. They shared a courtyard, but the entrances were separate. Each resident had their own part of the house with a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom, even if these rooms were small. The house was divided into four parts: two doors on the ground floor and two on the second. On the second floor lived Mrs. Brown herself and the young Adams family, Ellie and John. But you never knew who lived on the right; it was quiet there, although the light was on at night. You woke up to pick up the morning mail, but as soon as you opened the door to take the newspaper from the threshold, you noticed a tall, thin guy, pale, in black trousers and a wrinkled cotton shirt. He was standing next door, a few meters away, clumsily trying to lift the newspaper, holding a package and a stack of papers in his hands. Well, unsurprisingly, the attempt was unsuccessful: the shot glass fell onto the threshold and a little further on, onto the wet grass. “Oh no! Damn it, damn it! No!” He looked around in confusion at all the fallen and scattered sheets of paper, not knowing what to do, and tried to hide the package by the door, but the room key fell out of his trouser pocket when he abruptly pushed his hair out of his face.