SCS 34

Story 34

Noises in the Apartment

I live in a two-story apartment building.

My room is number 103. The building is fairly old—over thirty years, at least. Because of that, sounds carry a lot.

There are quite a few vacant units. The ones who still live here are mostly elderly people, and they don’t seem to be home much. I often see cars from what looks like a nursing service coming to pick them up, so I guess they go to some kind of day-care facility.
On the other hand, I work from home, so I’m always here.

The man who lives upstairs often drops things. Sometimes there’s this tremendous thud that echoes through the whole building.
A little while after the noise, he usually comes downstairs to apologize.
“Sorry! I was tidying up and accidentally knocked over a shelf,” he’ll say.
I’m not really bothered by noise, so I just tell him, “It’s fine,” and let it go.
Besides, he’s a nice guy. I’m the only young person living in this apartment, so he often gives me snacks. He said his son is about the same age as me, so he’s always really kind.

One day, there was another loud thud.
Usually, the man would come to apologize about ten minutes later, but this time, he didn’t.
Normally, I wouldn’t care—it’s not like we’re family—but he’s always been friendly, and I was worried, so I decided to go upstairs to check on him.
It was my first time visiting his room.

He was fine—alive and well. He apologized for not coming down earlier.

But while we were talking, I realized something strange about his room.
It’s a one-room apartment, so when you open the front door, you can see the whole place at a glance.
But in his room… there was nothing.
No furniture, no shelves, no boxes—nothing at all.
It’s an old apartment, so there’s no built-in closet or anything like that either.

So… what exactly has he been dropping all this time?