my neighbor

by dava sitkoff

My neighbor visits a dead man every Friday evening. At his grave, she sobs all over the defaced and vandalized stone and screams obscenities at the ground. Through tears, she tells him that he is arrogant, and cruel, and never did care about her in the way that he should have. 

My neighbor came over for brunch last Friday morning. Wanting to relate to her, I recounted the only time I held a conversation with her dead and terrible man. He had been very rude to me in the aisles of a grocery store; haughty and contemptuous over something insignificant. After I finished my story, my neighbor’s hands shook against her teacup, and she set it down so vulgarly that the bottom clanked against the plate. She glared at me and insisted that he had been a very good man, and what a tragedy it was that only she knew of his kindness. 

My neighbor returned to the grave that evening and went through her usual routine. After telling the man that he was arrogant, and cruel, and neglectful, she chastised him once more for leaving her no one to share her grief with.