thump.

     thump.

     thump.

     maureen rolled over, retarded with sleep, and tried to make sense out of the little red lights on the box on the window sill. it took a few moments of determined blinking before she could understand for sure what they meant. they meant that it was very early. 6:22.

     thump.

     "fuggingasshole." she sputtered, kicking her quilt and sheet off and swinging her legs over the side of the bed to sit up with her elbows resting on her knees. maureen was usually a graceful and gracious person, but like most people she lost all of her poise when jostled out of a dead sleep by strange thumping noises. and although she could not even begin to imagine what was making that sound she wasn't frightened at all. she was pissed, because she knew for sure WHO was making the sound. it just had to be roy.
     roy had moved in several months earlier, right after kristy and kristine had moved out. maureen didn't know roy very well, but he had been looking for a place right when she was looking for roommates so he moved in. any port in a storm. a woman named meghan had moved in then as well, but she spent all of her time at work or school or her boyfriends house so she was pretty much a non-issue. she showed up once every couple of weeks, made grocery store caliber small talk, grabbed her mail, left some money for rent or utilities and disappeared again. maureen didn't think that meghan even had a set of keys. the perfect roommate.
     roy paid his bills too, but he never left the house. he had been laid off or something early that summer and had a bunch of severance pay coming to him. supposedly he was writing a screenplay, but as far as maureen could tell all he did was laugh for no reason, eat microwaved breakfast foods and watch daytime tv. and make annoying sounds early on sunday mornings.

     thump.

     roy was sitting at the kitchen table, leaning back against the wall in his chair, looking blankly out the window. he had a half-eaten pop tart in one hand and a large crescent wrench  in the other. he slowly raised the wrench and slammed it flat side down on the edge of the kitchen table. hard. he seemed surprised at the sound that it made. he took a bite of pop tart and looked up just in time to see maureen in stocking feet, shuffling down the hall and into the kitchen. 
     "hey moe!" he said in his best curly voice, his mouth full of pop tart. he laughed quietly and several pieces escaped his mouth and landed on the kitchen floor. the first thing he said every time he saw maureen was 'hey moe' and it never stopped being funny to him. it had never even started being funny to maureen, even when she was little kid, and now in addition to it being stupid and obvious it was very very stale. 
     "do you have any idea what time it is?" maureen, to her credit, was trying to be patient.
     "seven?" he said, a bit too conversationally, and a larger piece of pastry flew out of his mouth to join its comrades on the linoleum.
     "it is now six twenty..", maureen shot a quick glance at the microwave, "...five. sunday morning." she glared at him.
     "oh, shit, did i wake you up? i'm sorry." he seemed sincere, if a little disinterested. he gave the table another good crack with the wrench and even though she was watching him do it maureen jumped a bit at the impact. the sound was a whole lot louder when you were in the room with it.
     maureen opened her eyes wide, put her hands on top of her head and said quickly "what the fuck are you doing?" she was still trying to be easygoing about this.
     roy leaned his chair forward so that all four legs were on the ground and looked up at maureen with a mixture of mild confusion and amusement. he obviously had no idea why she was upset.
     "the wrench, roy, the wrench! it's six o'clock in the morning and you are beating on the kitchen table with a goddamn wrench! what is your fucking problem?" the little bit of patience that she had been able to muster was now quite gone.
    "oh, yeah. that. umm. an experiment." roy said, and looked at the wrench in his hand thoughtfully. he studied it as he turned it back and forth and then looked back up at maureen. he smiled.
     maureen did not smile.
     "an experiment." she said quietly while looking down at the family of pop tart crumbs on the ground.
     "yeah," roy said studying the wrench again," i was thinking how, you know, even though the wrench is made of steel or whatever, really its mostly just empty space, and so is the table, you know. everything is. mostly empty space i mean. so, it seems like maybe, if everything was just right you could just pass the wrench right through the table, you know, right through. without them hitting. i mean, if both the table and the wrench are empty space there should be enough room..."
     he looked up at maureen again "do you want a pop tart?"
     " no i do not want a pop tart." maureen said after staring at him for a few seconds. she turned around and walked back down the hall towards the bathroom.

     maureen was standing in the shower with the water full blast on the back of her neck, brushing her teeth. at least there was plenty of hot water. that was one good thing about being up so early. another was that she had lots of stuff she would like to get done today, and she wasted most sundays. she usually slept in till noon.
     thump
     she turned around and spit out a mouthful of toothpaste foam towards the drain. she filled her mouth from the shower stream and swished it around in her cheeks while she rinsed the toothbrush off in the hot hot water. she then tapped it lightly on the showerhead several times and shook her head. she spit out the water.
     "fuggingasshole." she said, mildly, and turned off the shower.
       
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