The man in Apartment 322 woke up to the shrill tone of the digital alarm clock sitting on his nightstand; angled so that his outstretched arm while fully prone, on his stomach, in his bed, would smartly rap the snooze button on the very first attempt - always. The man opened his eye warily and noted with satisfaction that the clock face lit up a dull red "06:00". He opened his other eye and, propping himself up on his elbows, allowed himself a quick, jerky, self-satisfied, self-congratulatory nod of the head. Pausing a second, he decided such punctuality warranted a perfunctory moistening of his dry lips and jabbed his tongue about in practised ease. When the right-most set of LEDs on the clock face switched from "0" to "1", the man cleared his nostrils with a "Humph", flipped over onto his back, rolled off his bed and slipped his toes into his fluffy bedroom slippers while raising himself to full height - all in a single motion fluid enough to shame a Olympic-level gymnast. The scrupulous being went about his stretches and exercises, speeding up the blood in his veins to the muted tempo of a grunted "a-one-an'-a-two-an'-a-one" chant. At exactly "06:13" according to the clock, he swept himself to the bathroom. For the next 10 minutes, there was silence enough to hear the dust motes execute their Brownian paths in the sliver of morning sunlight streaming from the slip of gap between the screened curtains on the windows; that and the rather tuneless humming accentuated by the regular sploshing of splashing water. Having completed his toilette, the resident of Apartment 322 proceeded into the kitchen, his slippered, but still wet, feet slapping against the lacquered floor tiles. Watching the inhabitant of Apartment 322 - though why anyone would voluntarily put themselves through the trouble - one would logically suppose that the worthy in question was a severe and punctilious hermit; and one would have supposed quite correctly.
From the kitchen came the sounds of a coffee pot put to boil and clink of the milk bottles being brought in the backdoor. From the back wall, directly above the backdoor hung an analogue, circular-faced, white-dialled and black-handed wall clock mounted on a peg. As the minute and second hands raced each other past the dot positioned at "6", the backdoor slammed shut. It was with obvious consternation that man in Apartment 322 turned his back to the kitchen door - tucked underneath his left arm was the usual rolled-up newspaper, clutched in the fingers of his left arm were the usual couple of bottles of milk; but his right hand clutched an unusual, small, stubby, wide-mouthed glass bottle showing its cheery red contents at taut arm's length and beady eye level. All was still, except for the unnaturally loud ticking of the wall clock as he confusedly set the milk bottles next to his breakfast plate at the table and deposited the newspaper in the fridge. Still staring at the jam bottle - for that was what the label said - in his hand, oblivious to the fiercely bubbling coffee, his trembling fingers - now free of the milk bottles - made their way to the square, brown tag made of coarse, handmade paper tied to the jam bottle's squat neck in brown twine rather like a cheap piece of jewellery: "Season's greetings! Thanks for being an esteemed customer!", it proclaimed in a green, spindly, eye-sore of a cursive font. He set the bottle down on the kitchen counter in a jerky, quick motion. Arms akimbo, he stared at it in a rather unfocused manner until the coffee pot began spewing out a black tar-like substance over the stove, awakening him from his trance. Shaking his head and mentally kicking himself, he hurried about his breakfast trying to make up for the lost seconds.
At exactly 06:50 according to the kitchen clock - for that matter, also according to the digital clock in the bedroom, or even the wristwatch on his hand - the man from Apartment 322, smartly shut the main door behind him as he prepared to launch himself into the early morning multitude of tradespeople fording the streets on their own ways to their own places of business. Everyday, our acquaintance took exactly 22 minutes to reach his workplace which was a little corner-store at a busy downtown intersection that prided on stocking everything from greeting cards to parkas. Today, however, it was nearly 40 minutes later that he arrived at his shop - having been jostled thrice, tripped twice (of his own accord) and even having taken a wrong turn once - very flustered. His mood did little to improve itself as the day progressed: he had set the dailies in their racks - but definitely out of order since the sports pages were turned up, he dropped a box of soda cans over his foot, disturbed a display of cheap jewellery whilst hopping up and down in pain; and had to twice apologize to customers for miscounted change.
At 19:00, he gave up and pronounced his life "dead" and noted the time of departure in his mind. With a sombre face and a matching slouch, he walked home in a daze. On absentmindedly opening the door and letting himself in, his eyes nervously darted to the kitchen; and through the open door, at the off-white refrigerator which housed the aberrant jam bottle since earlier that day. He gnashed his teeth with a frustrated annoyance that was quite strange to his demure demeanour and stomped into his bedroom to get changed for a one-man war council. Twenty minutes later found him back in the kitchen, pacing to and fro in front of the counter. Occasionally, he clicked his fingers and followed through with imperceptible little nods and shakes of his head. He continued in this manner for an hour and then sighing enormously he headed off to bed like a defeated Atlas burdened with the weight of the skies.
Next morning, things went awry even before breakfast. The occupant of Apartment 322 woke up late - fourteen minutes late, to be exact. He hurried through his ablutions and was very cross with himself by the time he left for work - nearly twenty minutes behind schedule. The rest of the day went just as badly as the previous one with his daily routine upset and his concentration often broken with his mind on the jam bottle in his refrigerator. It was a severely frayed looking person who let himself in to Apartment 322 that evening. He hurried to the fridge and fished out the jam bottle and quickly set it on the counter-top as if it were poisonous to the touch. He shook his head worriedly and went to get changed. Again, he dragged himself into the kitchen for his war council for the innocent looking jam bottle had wreaked havoc with his ordered and bland life. As he continued to debate his conundrum, he realised there were noises of some heavy things being dragged around outside. He whipped around and went up to the front window and saw that he seemed to be getting new neighbours. He watched with interest as the movers unloaded the truck - out came large boxes and furniture and into Apartment 321 they went. As he studied the steady flow of material from the truck to the building, a greasy taxi cab drove up to the kerb and deposited a middle-aged couple. The man was well-built, though gone-to-seed a little around the midsection; with closely cropped peppery hair and a matching moustache. His companion was a little wispy lady clutching an over-size handbag. They looked at Apartment 321 and glanced at each other with joy writ large on their faces. As the last of the boxes went into the building, and the movers packed up their equipment, the neighbours made their way into their new home hand-in-hand.
As the movers' truck pulled away, a proverbial light bulb lit itself in the cranial region of the man in Apartment 322. He gave a strangled squeak of delight and ran pell-mell to the kitchen. Scarcely stopping, he grabbed the jam bottle, executed a U-turn while skidding over the foot-mat and ran out the front door. He made his way next door and smartly rapped on the door. As he bounced on the spot in his bedroom slippers, the door opened and he found himself face-to-face with the new Mr & Mrs Apartment 321. Soon they were making small talk; laughing politely and nodding patiently while each party introduced themselves and explained their lots in life. As they said their goodnights, the man from Apartment 322 thrust out the bottle of jam and welcomed Mr & Mrs Apartment 321 to the neighbourhood. A very surprised Mrs Apartment 321 smiled and graciously accepted the unexpected gift.
It was, once again, the old inhabitant of Apartment 322 that re-entered and closed the door behind him. He let out a huge sigh of relief and noted that it was precisely 11:30 PM. He smiled to himself as he made his way to the bedroom for some well-deserved sleep.
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