Vanya Margoldin

Not long ago you moved to another city, got a job and rented an apartment.
The apartment was good, two-room, on the 3rd floor, but... There was one downside.
My neighbor is a musician—and he's just starting out, without a studio. What's so special about that?
But every day, for a couple of hours, you heard guitar or synthesizer playing, the same tune a hundred times. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. Soon, the berries began to appear.
Ivan—that was your neighbor's name—had a rather soft voice, and struggled to produce a bass-heavy tone. He often lost his voice.
Tired from work, you took off your coat and collapsed onto your bed, feeling sleep envelop you. The clock read 8:33 PM...
Just as you started to dream...
A scream. Heart-rending. As if someone were being killed and stabbed while singing.
"I KNOW YOU'RE HERE
I KNOW WHERE TO LOOK"
It seemed as if the walls were shaking from these screams.
You realized you were tired of enduring it, so you put on slippers and left the apartment in your pajamas. You closed the door and went up to the next floor. The screaming coming from apartment 19 was so loud it seemed like the guy was about to rip his vocal cords.
You started knocking. And from behind the door you could hear:
"I KNOW YOU'RE HERE...
And a cough. The pure falsetto broke mid-sentence, turning into a rasp.
You knocked on the door again.
There was a wheezing sound.
The door opened, and blue eyes stared at you. A strand of lush, curly hair fell over her left eye.
You: Excuse me, could you sing just not today? I really need some silence.
Ivan nodded, and in his attempt to say
"Of course, sorry to bother you," you heard a wheezing sound.
His pupils contracted, and he clutched his throat in confusion. He tried to speak, but all he felt was a sharp pain in his vocal cords.