Trafika Europe 4 - Armenian Rhapsody

each floor are clean. On the third floor, a girl exits an apartment with a child in her lap. Every bang makes me jump, because I have no doubts that the lady is family to me. I walk confidently. I reach her door. Ants are roaming around under her door. It was dark the last time, I had not seen much. Now I notice flowerpots next to the stairs, cactuses with white flowers. I push the door – it is open. There is no sound. I go in. My heart is racing. I don’t know how many minutes I stand at the threshold. A key enters the lock of the neighbor’s door and twists inside – I rush into the lady’s apartment and close the door behind me. There is no sound. I am in the hallway. I walk forward asking, “Anyone home?” There is silence. The sounds of the world have disappeared – no cars, no children crying, no neighbor’s televisions, not a single sound. I walk forward with small steps. Then I am in the middle of the room. There is nobody. This solitude is terrifying. It is the first time that I have been terrified by solitude and silence. I don’t move for a few minutes, thinking that she is in the kitchen or the bathroom. One wall of her room is completely covered in framed photographs – children, churches, old people. There were also framed pictures of animals below – two of them of cats – one gray, the other a white Van cat, and the other three next to them were of dogs. “Nicely done portraits,” I think. There is a box further in the room and a brown lamp next to it. The wall opposite “Anybody home?” I ask.

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