[Bassim]

Dear people.
Please, would you help me and proofread this text. This is a story about loneliness and a person's reaction to the coldness of the modern society.

In our neighbourhood people usually do not talk to each other. If one meets a person on the street one pretends counting leaves on the treetops or cracks in the asphalt, so it was an unusual event when my neighbour from the flat above talked to me for the first time after four years. I was just living our laundry room when I saw her coming into our building.

"Excuse me," she said in her friendly voice. "I would like to ask you if you have been disturbed by us lately? We have bought a new bed that make a terrible noise and you must have heard it?"
I looked at her wrinkled, old face which was surely going to look like a dry fig in a few years and her blue eyes which looked big behind her thick glasses and said, "Not at all. Your bedroom is above my kitchen and I hear nothing."
I thought this was the right moment to ask her about me making noise, so I asked her, "I am wondering if you are disturbed by my howling? I howl sometimes very loudly and you must have been disturbed?"
"No!" she answered. "We hear nothing from your flat."

I felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from my shoulder. I was afraid that my neighbours heard my howls and would call the police. I waited for them to come any time; four tall, broad shouldered, muscular police officers dressed in black uniforms with pistols and teaser guns on their hips and shiny handcuffs hanging from their belts. I heard their heavy boots resounding in the entrance hall and then they knocked resolutely on my door and when I opened it, a man with a crew cut said in an authoritarian voice, "Sir, people are complaining about your howling. You have no right to disturb the residents in this peaceful area. You have to come with us!"

They handcuffed me and led me to their car. I felt like a small, fragile insect in the midst of their heavy bodies. My neighbours was watching the scene; malicious and delighted over my misfortune, satisfied that their suspicions confirmed.
"If Hitler had won the war these blackheads would never have come here," said my old grumpy neighbour who lives in the flat on the other side of the street.
"It is because of the people like him our pensions are so small. They got everything for free while we toiled all our life and still nobody cares about us." concurred his wife.
"Remind me to change our lock tomorrow. If he ends up in a prison they will bring another blackhead instead!" he said.

"Please take a sit," a middle age psychiatrists said to me. He gazed at me with his watery eyes. His hair was bleached and combed back. His face still sunburned from the hot Thailand's sun. He leant back in his comfortable skin chair, put an expression of superiority and said, "Now, be a good boy and tell me how you began howling?"

I had nightmares. They kept me tied up to the bed while I howled at the top of my voice making a deafening noise in a white painted room without windows. And then I saw a blond and big breasted nurse dressed in blue uniform with a huge syringe in her hand. Her blue eyes piercing me, she jabbed the tip into my arm. My howl turned into prolonged squeals. I was choking, something strangling my throat.

I woke up in a pool of sweat. I know if they ever locked me up I would never come out alive. According to the law they could keep me inside as long as they wanted. A howling wolf is a very unpleasant experience, but a howling human is much worse. No society can tolerate howling. Urinating in the street, farting on the overcrowded bus or vomiting in some countries can be punishable with fines, but howling is more serious offence. In some countries a howling person is equal to a subversive activity. It means a prison camp and years of hard labour.

Unfortunately, people cannot understand that howling is like an addiction. Ask a drug addict or an alcoholic how they began and you will understand that their stories are almost simple. One day they have tasted the "forbidden fruit" and after that everything changed. Their addiction became a part of their being, made their lives governed by it and changed their world view.

To be continued....