The tenant

My neighbor once rented their house to a group of people who spoke a language different from what I could understand. At that time, I thought it was quite charming that they spoke a different language.

At first, it was peaceful having them as neighbors. However, things started to change. Whenever they came back, they would talk loudly as they entered the house. Sometimes they sang and sometimes they shouted at each other. This went on for weeks and it got from bad to worse. We then found out from our neighbor that the tenant did not pay rent for 3 months and they were given notice to leave.

One night, when I was home alone, I was awakened by the sounds of the gate. I peeked through my curtain window and saw one of them was trying to open the gate but had no key. He was clearly drunk as I could hear he was slurring. He shouted but nobody was in the house to open the gate.

Then, he tried to climb over the gate and held the sharp edges of the gate to support himself but in his drunk state, he fell over the gate. He did manage to get into the car porch but he still could not get into the house. He banged the front door until I could hear he got tired. I couldn't really sleep that night as the tenant's actions made me feel perplex.

The next morning, as I was leaving for work, I noticed the tenant was sprawled like a worm outside the door and there were traces of blood on the floor by the gate, all the way to the front door. This was what alcohol can do to a person. Not charming anymore.

Image by Tessa Wilson on Unsplash

Timer set: 10 minutes

Timer: mobile phone

Translator: none

Grammar tool/s: none

Writing device/s: laptop and mobile

This is my 3rd and final entry to the 1st Contest Freewriting.

The topic of this contest

alcohol effects
(What are the effects of alcohol?)

The prompts are

ashes - charming - release - perplex - support - worm
(You have to use at least 3 out of 6.)