Short Story, Theme Prompt

Through The Wall, Softly

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for Muse on Monday where David
asks us to write a story about neighbors.
Here’s were the prompt took me.

Image by Me & Copilot

Santiago heard the cello at 3 AM for the third night running. Not a recording …. live playing, hesitant and searching. He pressed his palm against the shared wall of his apartment, feeling the vibrations travel through plaster and wood.

He’d moved in two months ago and never met his neighbor. Just occasional glimpses: a woman in her sixties with silver hair, always alone.

The music stopped. Santiago sat in the dark, suddenly aware of his own sleeplessness, his own reason for being awake at this hour. Six months since the accident. Six months of staring at ceilings.

The next night, he waited. When the cello began at 2:47 AM, he picked up his guitar …. untouched since Altagracia died …. and quietly played along. Just chords at first, barely audible. The cello paused. Then continued, adjusting to accommodate him.

They played for an hour.

This became their ritual. Never speaking, never meeting. Just music through the wall in the hollow hours when grief made sleep impossible.

One morning, he found a note slipped under his door: “Thank you. I buried my husband ten months ago. I thought I’d never play again. – Misaki, 4B”

Santiago wrote back: “My wife. Seven months. Christmas Eve. I thought the same. – Santiago, 4A”

That evening, Misaki knocked on his door. They didn’t play through the wall anymore.

They played together.


NAR©2025

This is “Now We Are Free” from Gladiator by HAUSER

Muse on Monday – December 8, 2025

All text and graphics are copyright for Nancy Richy and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

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