Ailleianne. Tina Marie Maes

to live by herself again. It was one of the reasons she hadn’t stipulated how long her tenant would stay. But perhaps if ze continued to be a decent tenant she’d suggest ze stay longer than the six months. She fell asleep, vowing to herself to have the conversation after work tomorrow.

      Unfortunately, she didn’t get a full night’s sleep. She was awoken abruptly by explosions downstairs. It took her a few seconds to get her bearings, and listen to anything over her too-loud heart.

      There couldn’t be explosions in her house. She’d feel them. She listened to the low voices that pricked the spaces between the sounds of explosions. Finally she recognized it; it was another movie.

      Was Aillie a night owl? That could explain zis weird mannerisms. Ze obviously didn’t understand how to get along with people.

      Well, ze wasn’t going to get along with London if ze thought it was appropriate to blast the loudest movie at whatever-the-hell o’clock at night it was.

      She looked over to her alarm clock on her night table. One am? It was only one in the morning? She’d been asleep for a measly two hours.

      London got out of bed and stomped her way downstairs to the living room. As she reached the bottom, she confronted Aillie, sitting in the exact same space ze’d been before, gaze fixated on the television screen.

      “Dude, it’s nighttime! Does it have to be so loud?”

      “I did not touch the volume.”

      London ignored zim and stomped over to the remote. She viciously stabbed at the remote, lowering it to a more acceptable volume.

      “I did not touch the volume,” ze reiterated.

      “Fine!” She snarled, “but it still doesn’t need to be that loud. Do you hear anything that loud now?”

      She stood, hands on her hips, waiting for zim to respond.

      Ze cocked his head to the side, seemingly listening. “No. It is very quiet now. A man two houses down is snoring. There are three children in that house who are whispering. But there is a significant lack of noise at this time of the 24-hour cycle.”

       “That’s right. It’s night. Go to bed. You can get up tomorrow and watch more.”

      “Okay.”

      Ze agreed, immediately standing and making for zis room. London stared at him, wondering if this was some sort of power struggle between them or if ze was really just that bad at interacting with people.

      “Make sure you don’t wake me up again!” She called after her new tenant.

      Aillie turned around and nodded assent before continuing to zis room. Before ze shut the door, ze looked back. “Are you mad?”

      “Yes.” She said shortly. When zis tenant’s shoulders visibly slumped, she took a deep breath before saying through gritted teeth, “It’s fine. Go to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow. Just… let me get some sleep so I can get through work tomorrow. Or, I guess today.”

      “Sleep?”

      “Do you even understand what sleep is?”

      “Sleep.” Confidence returned to Aillie’s tone. “A rest in order to rejuvenate the body and rest the mind.”

      “Right. And mine’s been interrupted. Tomorrow’s going to suck. But maybe if I can get some more sleep, then it’ll be better.”

      “Sleep occurs now?”

      “For my schedule, yeah. I mean, I try to get to bed by 10 or 11 on a weeknight, when I have to work. And then I’m usually up by 7 or 8, again depending when I have to work.” London shoved a hand through her sleep-mussed hair. “Look, we can talk about sleep schedules tomorrow. Just please promise that you’ll go to bed now. Let me sleep. I’ll be out of here by 7:30 in the morning. You can watch more movies then. Cool?”

      “I believe that is acceptable. You’re going to go to sleep. Sleeping is between ten p.m. and eleven p.m. until 7:30 or 8 a.m..”

      “Yup.” London replied shortly, then watched as Aillie turned on zis heel and returned to zis room.

      London sighed. This probably wasn’t the best way to handle things. Whatever, she was done for the night. She turned off the TV and DVD player before wearily climbing back into her bed.

      Blessedly she slept well and was next woken by her alarm clock. It was just past 7 o'clock in the morning. It seemed her confusing tenant had taken her advice and went to bed, or at least was quiet. She quickly got dressed, grabbed her lunch and was out the door before she even heard noise from zis room.

      She really hoped the living arrangement would get easier. She had sinking feeling she was in for more surprises ahead.

      Unbeknownst to her, she was right.