Two Weeks Ago by Valerie Alston

The man next door used to rise early in the morning for his walk around the circle in our apartment complex everyday. He was a retired soldier from the Vietnam War and everybody in the community knew him. He always spoke to everyone, stopped to talk to the people who lived there. When the sunset in the evening, there was a very young girl who lived up the hill who used to stop by to see him sometimes. He would give her money and she handed him something back. Since I worked most of the time, I was always on the go and never got to know this man personally. But as I'd come in from work, I only had time to shower, eat and sleep before reporting for my job on the graveyard shift again.

One day when I came home from work, a strange odor was in my apartment. I paid little attention to it. A week later, the smell got stronger and I thought it was outside. Again, I kept on going, not taking it as being a problem, maybe it was the sewer outside my window or coming from the drain pipes in the bathroom or the garbage disposal in the kitchen.

Two weeks went by and the scent got outrageously strong. At that point, it was coming through the walls into my apartment. Something decayed and rotten was floating around and I called the office of the property management to report a dreadful fowl odor somewhere in my apartment. Maintenance came to look but found nothing. I insisted they find out where this terrible odor was coming from since it was beginning to give me headaches. 

A few days passed. I was getting ready to leave for work, when I noticed the ambulance, two police cars and a grey hearst parked outside in front of the neighbor's door. After the ambulance left, the two police cars remained talking to some people, writing something down. The grey hearst was still there. Then I saw the Old man's body being brought out on a stretcher and placed inside the grey hearst. He  had died in his sleep and I believe his spirit was restlessly wandering around until I reported it. How could nobody know he was dead! Everybody in the community knew this man by name, except me, yet his spirit wandered over to my apartment to plead for help. I was so moved by the incident, I talked about it at work to a co-worker and she said, "I know his spirit must have been glad you helped and he probably thanked you for calling somebody, now he can go into the light and finally be able to rest in peace."