Walls

When I travel, I always worry about my neighbours. I always hope they’re respectful people who won’t listen to my telephone conversations. For that reason, I always call hotels before booking, to enquire about the composition of the room walls. Ideally, they should be between 4" and 4.5” and minimally soundproof.

You see, after having travelled my entire childhood and young adulthood, I know what it’s like to hear everything your neighbours say or do in the room, or in the bathroom.

I prefer the rooms to have double locks, and I am always extremely careful so as not to forget to place the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door before closing it, in order to avoid any unwanted visits from the housekeepers at inopportune moments, that they seem to have a knack for choosing to clean your room at.

In my line of business all these precautions are absolutely necessary.

I make quite a few calls a day, all of the utmost importance and secrecy. The details that are usually exchanged could bring some serious complications if they fell into the wrong hands. For that reason I have started speaking with code words, which are previously agreed on with my customers. This did, and still does, from time to time, generate some mix-ups, especially among the new customers who sometimes forget the agreed upon words and end up going to a completely different place, leaving me waiting, generally in a secluded street, raising suspicious glances from passers-by, with goods in hand that could get me into serious trouble. However, when I’m certain that the walls of my room are thick enough for none of my neighbours to hear me, I can be a little less strict, which is why I always call the hotels.

But why, you may ask, do I take these precautions, and what merchandise am I distributing that could bring me these so called dilemmas? You see, as a member of the Russian Mafia, I can’t afford any slips, which is why I won’t be telling you what it is I negotiate about with my customers, because if I did, my bratva⁽¹⁾ would probably play Russian roulette with my life.

⁽¹⁾ Russian mafia gang; brotherhood.

A Little Fable

"Alas," said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into."

"You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up. 

Franz Kafka