Their screams cut through the peaceful suburban night.
Standing barefoot on the recently re-polished wood of our back verandah, I stood silently looking out at the horror movie unfolding from my backyard.
It had been a beautiful night - st
ill apart from a slight, late-Summer breeze. I'd been sitting listlessly in the living room, windows open, when I heard the silence shattered.
"I'll call the fucking police! I'll call the fucking police!" came the woman's defiant voice.
"Fine! Call them, go on, call them!" boomed a male voice in reply. The fury, the hatred and the emotional abandon in their screams drew me out into the backyard.
I was audience to a roaring domestic drama. It was my neighbours from over the back fence, their frantic sillouheuttes visible from a single lit window. I realised, with a sudden twinge of neighbourly shame, that i'd never met these people. Never even seen them. And now suddenly, they'd gone from complete strangers to completely exposed. No over-the-picket-fence introductions, just their dirty laundry flung right in my face, flung right in the faces of anyone who cared to listen.
The yelling continued for ten or so minutes. A slam of a door echoed like a gunshot. Why was I so transfixed? Is it wrong that
I was fascinated? Like a bystander at the burning wreckage of a car accident, I couldn't help but stand there. But then I heard a different voice. I spotted the sillouheutte of a small child... There was a kid involved in all of this.
I knew then to stop listening. I'll just stick with watching "Desperate Housewives" to satisfy my suburban voyeur hunger.
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