This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “Alone Time” Down in the Dirt, v183 (the May 2021 Issue) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology Lockdown’s Over the Down in the Dirt May-August 2021 issues collection book		get the 420 page May-August 2021 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Lockdown’s over

Mike Rader

    I had a solution for the coronavirus lockdown. Every night I went up to the roof of my apartment building and walked. Up and down, side to side. Sometimes I jogged. Tee shirt and shorts, like I was in a park. And I’d stop by the parapet, just near the plant room, regaining my breath, gazing out across the lights of all the other buildings. Millions of people, just like me, were trapped inside those towers. Another Covid night. I guess I was lucky. The janitor left our roof door unlocked.
    From the streets below came silence. As though the city was a sleeping monster. The buzz of traffic, the wail of sirens, now a distant memory after months of lockdown.
    It kind of kept me sane, that nightly ritual. I’d catch the news, check the daily death count, then head for the roof. For someone who lived alone, with nobody to share the darkness, it was my pathetic antidote to the pandemic.
    But tonight, when I went up and opened the roof door, everything changed.
    I stepped out into my little private world. But I wasn’t alone. Raised voices. Bitter, harsh. Accusatory. I heard a slap, another slap, a woman’s cry. I darted around past the plant room and stopped dead in my tracks.
    My neighbors Tom and Alice were out there on the roof. I saw fists and arms fly. Alice went down, a crumpled bloody heap by the edge of the roof.
    “Tom!” I yelled. “Stop! Now!”
    He turned and looked at me. Like a cornered animal. His shoulders slumped. He backed away from his wife’s body. His voice sounded tortured.
    “It’s the lockdown, Mark,” he told me. “We got on each other’s nerves. We came up here for fresh air. We started arguing. We were always arguing. It was getting worse.” He was pleading now. “I don’t know what happened, she started hitting me. She was insane. She wouldn’t stop.” He ran a hand over his face. It looked unmarked. “I didn’t know what to do.”
    I approached cautiously. Alice, bent and twisted, reminded me of a broken doll. “Let me see if she’s okay.”
    I kneeled down, felt for a pulse.
    As I expected, there was none.
    Alice’s eyes raked the heavens sightlessly.
    “Tom,” I told him quietly, “you’ve killed her.”
    Confusion, panic chased each other across his face. “You’ve got to believe me! I swear! I didn’t mean to!”
    I wanted to calm him until I got help. “I’m sure you didn’t. Accidents happen, Tom. No one’s going to blame you.” I started to rise. “Just wait here. I’ll go down and call the police.”
    “I’ve got a better idea,” Tom snapped.
    His strength felt supernatural. He pushed me forward, wiping me like a cloth over his wife’s body. Her fresh red blood stained my tee shirt. Before I knew it, he was dragging me across to the parapet.
    “Tom! Stop!”
    I struggled. I fought. But he hauled me up onto the parapet. My feet were lashing out at nothing. I screamed.
    Then I was over the edge, spinning ten stories through space.
    I never saw the headline in the next day’s paper:

MAN SUICIDES AFTER KILLING
NEIGHBOR’S WIFE

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