[susiedqq]

In our neighbourhood people usually do not talk to each other. If one meets a person on the street, one pretends to count leaves on the treetops or cracks in the asphalt. So it was an usual event when my neighbour from the flat above talk to me for the first time in four years. I was just leaving the 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 makes 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, seemingly big behind her thick glasses. "Not at all," I said, "Your bedroom is above my kitchen and I hear nothing."
I thought this was the right moment to ask her about me making noise. "I am wondering," I inquired, "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 shoulders. I was afraid that my neighbours had heard my howls and would call the police. For months, I had waited for them to come: four tall, broad shouldered, muscular police officers dressed in black uniforms with pistols and taser guns on their hips, with shiny handcuffs hanging from their belts. I heard their heavy boots resounding in the entrance hall and then they knocked resolutely on my door. When I opened it, a man with a crew cut said in a 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 trapped between their heavy bodies. My neighbours watched the scene, maliciously delighted over my misfortune, satisfied that their suspicions were confirmed.
"If Hitler had won the war these blackheads would never have come here," said my old grumpy neighbour who lives in the the flat on the other side of the street.
"It is because of people like him our pensions are so small. They get everything for free while we had to toil all our lives. And still, nobody cares about us." concurred his wife.
"Remind me to change our locks tomorrow. If he ends up in prison, they will bring another blackhead instead!" he said.

"Please, take a seat," a middle aged psychiatrist said to me. He gazed at me with watery eyes. His hair was bleached and combed back. His face still sunburned from the hot sun, he leaned back in his comfortable leather chair, and asked in an expression of superiority, "Now, be a good boy and tell me, how is it that you began howling?"

I had always had nightmares. I was kept tied to the bed in a white painted room without windows, all the while howing at the top of my lungs, trying to make a deafening noise. Then a blond, big-breasted nurse dressed in blue uniform approached me with a huge syringe in her hand. Her blue eyes piercing me, she jabbed the needle into my arm. My howl turned into squeals; I was choking, feeling something strangling my throat. I woke up in a pool of sweat. I knew if they ever locked me up, I would never come out alive.

According to the law they could keep me 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 an overcrowded bus or vomiting in some countries can be punishable with fines, but howling is a more serious offence. In some countries, howling is equal to a subversive activity. It can mean prison camp and years of hard labour.

People don't understand that howling is like an addiction. Ask a drug addict or an alcoholic how they began and you will find their stories simple. One day they taste the "forbidden fruit" and after that, everything changes. Their addiction becomes a part of their being, governing their lives and view of the world.

To be continued....