I hate the couple in Apartment C. They throw parties on weeknights and watch the same movies with surround sound. Always Transformers 2, Superbad, or The Italian Job remake. They dance to the Beach Boys and invite their shitty niece over twice a week to somersault into the other side of my wall. Thankfully, I don’t have anything hanging up. If I did, she would have knocked it off and broken it by now. Still, the principle, so I pound on Apartment C’s door and ask them to make her stop. There are two other apartments in this building. How am I the only one bothered by this? But the couple in Apartment C lecture me about the spirit of youth. Live and let live. All of that crap.

I hate them. I want them to move. I will make it happen.

I blast death metal. Stage a violent argument with an escort. Leave hamburger meat to rot by my front door. The couple in Apartment C remains unfazed.

I meditate on this. Co-Star predicts big change whipping its way around the corner and advises I do something I’ve never done before. Apparently, it’s about time I roll up my sleeves and do it.

My best friend Spence works with me in Prepared Foods. He is more specific. While we check temps at the hot bar, he tells me to consult the Demonology Reddit. He says that if I establish contact with a demon, it could help. He explains how everybody is their own god capable of making their own reality. This sounds great. I’ve never been a fan of my reality.

Now it’s Halloween, and judging by the noise coming from the other side of my wall, the couple in Apartment C is throwing another party. But that isn’t the point. The point is that tonight is not only Halloween, but also a blue moon, which I guess only happens every twenty years or something. According to Spence, a blue moon is perfect for manifesting, and so tonight I will manifest the couple in Apartment C’s destruction.

The Demonology Reddit says to draw a sigil and light incense and sit inside of a magick circle. I’m not sure if it will work, but Spence believes in me, and encouragement is rare, and so damn me if I won’t try. I follow Reddit’s instructions and then I close my eyes and meditate on the demon’s enn.

I hear them. Not the demon. My neighbors. And all of their friends. I don’t trust anybody with this many friends. Hear that thud? It’s their shitty niece, tumbling into my wall over and over and over. They’re singing and laughing. Somebody puts on Superbad and the entire party shouts, What, so I got to sit here and eat dessert alone like I’m fucking Steven Glansberg?

I hate that stupid fucking movie.

I open my eyes. The moon glows through my window. It’s really blue. Like sapphire.

I close my eyes again.

Focus.

Spence told me to concentrate on my breathing. Direct every thought until I’ve reached my State Akin to Sleep. Think of myself as a bundle of tubes. Think of the air gently passing in and out of those tubes.

The shitty niece slams into my wall again.

Air. Tubes. In out in out. Through the nostrils, down the trachea. Inflate the lungs.

Deflate.

Sound muffles. Something releases. I feel as if I’m floating.

But I’m not floating. I’m still on the floor. And now my apartment is dark, save for the cherry ember of the incense and the moon still glowing strong and blue through my window.

My eyes adjust to the darkness.

A giant eye hangs over me, blue like the moon. And I am surrounded by chattering teeth.
In a thousand voices, the teeth scream FUCKCUNTSHITCOCK.

This feels like a dream, but it’s no dream. The ritual worked. Maybe it feels like a dream because it’s so rare to succeed, especially on the first try. And maybe it feels like a dream because success is not only rare, but sweet, like when you first bite into a fruit you’ve never heard of. Something grown on the other side of the world and historically enjoyed by a remote village, and it’s been shipped to a Whole Foods on Long Island so that you can, in a small way, share something with those complete strangers. Yes, that’s it.

Summoning a demon feels like a dream because nothing this sweet should be so easy.
The niece slams against my wall again. The teeth chatter. The floor vibrates. The demon is real. I am not afraid. Everything feels natural.

Make them leave, I plead with the demon, I want them to leave.

The teeth open. A tongue rolls onto the floor, wet and wide as my head. Pale like when you forget to brush it. The demon wants an offering. I forgot about this part. From what I’ve read, chocolate bars and gold are standard. But all I have is myself, and I’m not going that far.

The tongue jiggles and the teeth scream, THUCKCUNTSTHITCOCK.

A dull thud. The shitty niece? No. The thud is coming from outside of my window. It’s the blue moon, pulsing.

No. It’s the tongue, slapping against the floor, thirsty for a gift.

No. It’s my heart, alone in this ribcage. Thudding. Thudding. Thudding.

I should call the ritual off. Try again tomorrow when I have a gift. Text Spence and see what he thinks. But the tongue jiggles, the eye widens at me, the incense smoke thickens and then clears and now I’m in the living room of Apartment C.

I know it’s Apartment C because it’s exactly like my living room but inverted. The closet is here instead of there, the radiator there instead of here. The living room of Apartment C has a fancy TV. A record player. A PlayStation 5. Lots of art that their shitty niece has somehow failed to knock off of the wall. And they have all of these friends. All of these mummies and vampires and robots and sexy nurses drinking and dancing to the Beach Boys. All of this Superbad playing on the TV. They dressed the shitty niece like a bumblebee and are still letting her somersault into my wall. I push through the crowd to make her stop but everybody stomps and shouts and it’s all whirling around me. I try to yell, “Shut the hell up and go home!” but I am mute. I wave my arms in peoples’ faces and nobody even blinks. The couple prances out of the kitchen dressed as salt and pepper shakers and I want to throttle them. I want to toss their shitty niece out of the window and burn their apartment to the ground and let the fire take me with it.

Smoke thickens again. My body locks. When the smoke clears I’m back in my apartment sitting cross-legged with the teeth and the tongue and the eye. I am gone but the party still whirls and the niece thuds against my wall and the moon flashes through my window and I wish Spence was here but he’s not and he’s my only friend in the world but I’ve never hung out with him outside of work and what is he doing for Halloween anyway and why wasn’t I invited and thud thud thud the shitty niece and the party-goers stomp and The Monster Mash comes on and I picture the couple in Apartment C swinging around crashing into my wall and laughing about it and if I had anything hanging up it would have fallen and shattered but I have nothing I have nothing I have nothing I have nothing and thud against my wall and I have nothing but the tongue the eye the teeth baring down on me because the demon wants a gift but I have nothing except for this blue pulsing moon and my crappy little apartment with my crappy neighbors and I am tired of being reminded I am so tired of having nothing. It’s me the demon wants, so I will offer myself. Or maybe the demon just needs to use its teeth, crack open my chest, and slurp out this thudding heart.

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“I Hate the Couple in Apartment C” by Quinn Adikes and the artwork titled How to Deal with Annoying Neighbors by Viet Nguyen appeared in Issue 43 of Berkeley Fiction Review.

Quinn Adikes’ work has appeared or is forthcoming in Five Points, Epiphany, december, The Southampton Review, Fiction International, Shenandoah, and other journals. Adikes is the recipient of the Joseph Kelly Prize for Writing and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. They live in Brooklyn and have an MFA from Stony Brook Southampton, where they also taught creative writing. Adikes is writing a novel. You can find out more about them at www.quinnaadikes.me.

Viet Nguyen is a fourth-year student at UCSD. He enjoys art and sometimes wonders if there’s an alternate universe where he pursued an art career, say in animation. When not drawing (which is most of the time haha), he’s either playing video games, watching anime, studying, or spending time with his boyfriend.