"Paper Thin" by Amber Fratesi
flash fiction
Dear 607,
We’ve never met, but we used to share an elevator now and then. I was the one usually balancing my laundry on one knee while I rummaged for my keys, you taking a deep breath as you mentally prepared to be dragged around the complex by the prancing terrier at your feet. Now I just hear his yaps that mark dinner time and his zoomies down the hallway when you let him out to stretch his legs. It must be nice, having an excuse to leave your apartment.
I couldn’t help notice you recently took up an instrument. At first, I thought it was the sound of a harp filtering through our adjoining wall, but as I listened closer, I realized it was a ukulele. Every night, like clockwork, practice began with a few tentative plucks. And every night, like clockwork, I told myself, “I should really write them a note.”
As your neighbor, I felt it my duty to tell you:
Thank you.
We’ve never met, but I’ve been on this journey with you. I was there from the first tunings of “My Dog Has Fleas” and nonstop renditions of “Wheels on the Bus.” My stomach fell at your grunts of frustration as you fumbled the strings, and my heart leapt at your whoop of laughter as you finished the song for the first time without missing any fingerings. I silently cheered you on from my bed as you called to your partner in the next room. I smiled as their reply, wordless to me through the concrete walls, echoed your excitement.
My grandmother used to play the ukulele for my sister and me. We spent nearly every weekend of our childhood at her house in Atlanta. She’d sing silly songs about horses and fleas and the three blind mice, and we’d join her for rounds of “Row Your Boat.” Years later, my aunt wrote a song on that same ukulele, about my cousins who lived in a town called Shuqualak, Mississippi. We took a road trip there—my aunt, my sister, and me—and all I remember is that song and the Matchbox Twenty cassette we played, rewound, and played again the whole five hours there. They’re all in Georgia still. My grandmother is alone now, sequestered in her retirement home, and I wonder if by the time I see her again she’ll remember who I am. Life is but a dream, after all.
For weeks, you transported me. I became used to the ritual—every evening, seven o’clock. I’d settle myself on my bed, head tipped back against the wall, eyes closed. I imagined I was five again, sitting crisscross-applesauce at my grandmother’s feet. Patient, listening for the soft strum of nylon strings. At peace.
But one day, the sound never came. The days went by and the walls stayed silent, but still I sat motionless on my bed, legs crossed, waiting for you. Every day, I slumped a little lower, until eventually I was curling myself around a pillow. I assumed you’d given up, and I was sad for you. And sad for your ukulele. And sad for myself. The silence was, as they say, deafening, and the silence of quarantine had worn on me. I live by myself, far from family, and your music soothed some part of me Facetimes and phone calls couldn’t reach. But now it was gone, and the silence reached deeper.
One night, without warning, I felt the overwhelming pressure of my spiraling thoughts. With nothing else to occupy my mind, I was finally forced to confront the fears I’d been smothering with our nightly concerts. Would I ever see my grandmother again? Would my niece forget me? Would my sister, a nurse, end up alone in a hospital bed? I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t leave the synthetic comfort of my blankets. For the first time since this began, I truly needed human contact. I needed a walk with a friend or a hug from my mom. And I could have neither.
Then, I heard a faint chord. At first, I thought I’d imagined it, but it grew louder as you made your way to what I assume is a closet, but privately I envision as my grandmother’s den. In my head you sit in a rocking chair, legs crossed at the ankles, ukulele resting gently in your hands.
You were learning one of those meandering melodies that settles in your chest and makes your foot tap and your head sway from side to side. You played it over and over and over again, no breaks, and with each stanza my body unfurled a little more, until I stretched and resumed my place against the wall. I tilted my head back, closed my eyes. I tasted salty tears as they dripped down my nose and into my mouth, set in a silent howl of wrenching joy.
We’ve never met, but you saved me that night. I’ll never forget the harmony of that moment, of realizing I wasn’t alone, not really. There was something pure and magical in sharing that with you, even if you didn’t know it.
So, thank you, neighbor. We may meet one day, but I hope we don’t. I hope we continue on, never more to each other than nods in the hallway, never spoiling this one perfect moment between strangers in uncertain times.
Take care,
605
Amber Fratesi is an MFA candidate at Temple University studying fiction. Her work focuses on memory, generational bonds, and the ways in which the mundane becomes ritual. Born and raised in Georgia, she has lived in D.C., Alaska, and now Philadelphia, and each new home has broadened the lens through which she writes. She is inspired by the small, intimate moments that shape how we connect with our families, our histories, and ourselves.