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“More
beautiful than ever, Mr. Singh,” Mr.
Kevin would say. Putting the
cigarette in his mouth, he’d
open his palm and pass an orange
slice over to Mr. Singh.
“Thank
you,” Mr. Singh would say,
giving Mr. Kevin his newspaper.
“Freshly
sliced,” Mr. Kevin would
answer.
They’d
then follow up with a short discussion
about gardening or cooking or
tea. Despite all he must have
had on his mind, Mr. Kevin never
seemed rushed. It was simply
courteous and respectful conversation
at an ungodly hour. Quite civilized.
It took
the usual twenty-five minutes
for Mr. Singh to methodically
work his way up to the twelfth
floor. There were only two suites
on the top floor. Mr. Kevin’s
suite, 12a, was to the left,
around the bend, near the end
of a long corridor. The resident
to the right, an older lady who
lived alone, took the other paper,
which he always delivered last.
Mr. Singh
arrived at Mr. Kevin’s
door, and as usual it was half-way
open. But there was no sign of
Mr. Kevin. I could just leave
the newspaper here, Mr. Singh
thought. Then he’d miss
their daily conversation.
He waited for a moment. Of course,
he could not knock, that would
be highly improper. Humming louder,
he shuffled his feet, hoping
to make enough noise to announce
his arrival. Still, no one came.
He hesitated.
It was the engineer in him. He
liked routine. Order. He remembered
the day his eleventh-form mathematics
teacher taught the class that
there was no such thing as parallel
lines. That because the earth
was round, any two parallel lines
would eventually meet. Mr. Singh
didn’t sleep for a week.
There
was a noise from inside the apartment.
An odd, hollow sound. That was
strange. Then a door closed.
Good, he thought as he waited.
But there was silence again.
Maybe he should leave.
Instead,
he took Mr. Kevin’s newspaper
and dropped it onto the parquet
hall floor just outside the door.
It landed with a loud smack,
which he hoped would signal his
presence in the doorway. He’d
never done anything like this
before.
There was another noise inside.
Distant. Were they footsteps?
What should he do? He certainly
could not enter.
Mr. Singh
waited. For the first time, he
looked down at the front of the
newspaper. There was a picture
of an ice-hockey player raising
his arms in the air a story about
the local team’s win, the
Toronto Maple Leafs. How odd
that the name was misspelled:
Leafs and not Leaves. And the
color of the leaf on the jersey
was blue. Mr. Singh had seen
lovely red and yellow Maple leaves.
But never a blue one.
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