When you become accustomed to routines, or believe that change is an unwelcome guest in life, it's very easy to find yourself driven a little mad when something unexpected comes along. If your elevator is down for maintenance, if the store you frequent for everyday necessities closes down, if you were used to having nearly an entire floor of an apartment complex to yourself . . . any one of these things can upset an individual so used to wanting things a certain way. To have all of them happen at once, well, that's enough to drive you insane. If you weren't already, that is.
He was a quiet tenant, as they most often tend to be. The only tenant on the floor of his wing, rarely seen or heard from except to pay his rent or shop for food and clothing. Though it seems most people are just happy to have a neighbor who doesn't cause trouble, which Kesey seemed a magnet to. The cute young cashier at the drug store down the street even wondered why he never asked her out. She flirted with him and everything. She even asked around and nobody ever said anything about girls visiting him. Or men, for that matter. It's not like he wasn't cute, plus he had that certain air around him - that "bad boy" vibe that was unconsciously transmitted through his choice of clothes and body language.
There were stories about him that circulated through some of the tenants. One of them heard that the reason he kept to himself so much was because he saw his great love murdered before his eyes. He was so full of rage and grief that he took the lives of everyone he even thought was partially responsible. Although the rumor was also that the rampage ended when he incinerated himself in the same furnace his girlfriend was cremated in, which would be hard to believe since he was still, well, alive.
As Daniel Brooks propped the door open to room 7E, just across the hall from 7D, he saw the light vanish from the peephole in the door. That uneasy feeling of being watched swept over him, and he had the feeling that it wasn't curiosity with which he was being viewed. It was something else. Malice? Annoyance? Hatred? He couldn't say. Though he knew that he wasn't going to be welcomed to his new home anytime soon.
He was a quiet tenant, as they most often tend to be. The only tenant on the floor of his wing, rarely seen or heard from except to pay his rent or shop for food and clothing. Though it seems most people are just happy to have a neighbor who doesn't cause trouble, which Kesey seemed a magnet to. The cute young cashier at the drug store down the street even wondered why he never asked her out. She flirted with him and everything. She even asked around and nobody ever said anything about girls visiting him. Or men, for that matter. It's not like he wasn't cute, plus he had that certain air around him - that "bad boy" vibe that was unconsciously transmitted through his choice of clothes and body language.
There were stories about him that circulated through some of the tenants. One of them heard that the reason he kept to himself so much was because he saw his great love murdered before his eyes. He was so full of rage and grief that he took the lives of everyone he even thought was partially responsible. Although the rumor was also that the rampage ended when he incinerated himself in the same furnace his girlfriend was cremated in, which would be hard to believe since he was still, well, alive.
As Daniel Brooks propped the door open to room 7E, just across the hall from 7D, he saw the light vanish from the peephole in the door. That uneasy feeling of being watched swept over him, and he had the feeling that it wasn't curiosity with which he was being viewed. It was something else. Malice? Annoyance? Hatred? He couldn't say. Though he knew that he wasn't going to be welcomed to his new home anytime soon.