NEIGHBORS

The book opens on a gray European city. The child, dressed in red, ascends to apartment 12. This is the first time the narrator has had a room all to themselves. “But if you stop to think about it…” the child muses, “My ceiling is someone’s floor, and my floor is someone’s ceiling.” As the child imagines these new neighbors, the perspective shifts to a cross-section of the five-story apartment building; the child’s red dress and stuffed toy are the only spots of color. Readers peer in at a hive of activity: a family with many children playing; a gray-haired elder watching TV; someone on a toilet intently reading the newspaper. “Do they look like me? Or are they different in every way?” The page turn reveals startling transformations: The large family becomes Snow White and the seven dwarves; the TV viewer becomes a tortoise; a flying saucer hovers above the newspaper reader. Then: “Do they even exist?… / What if there is nothing at all beyond the walls of my room?” Happily, morning reveals a flute-playing neighbor in apartment 13, a child just the narrator’s size, dressed in yellow. The stable compositions and calm tone give the inquiry a sense of whimsy and wonder; there is no existential terror here. Narrator and neighbors present White.

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