there's a cool breeze at night in our tower house but it's embarrassing to hear our neighbor argue with his wife

there's a cool breeze at night in our tower house but it's embarrassing to hear our neighbor argue with his wife


fiction
Edward w Pritchard


It's very hot here in San Giacomo at night at street level but there is a wonderful breeze after midnight here in our tower house. No one sleeps safely at street level below with a window or door open because of fear of thieves, long running feuds between political factions, or fear of Plague. Seventy five feet above street level we keep the windows open all night and the long bolts of colorful cloth hanging down the stone sides of my tall tower house flap in a cool night breeze and we sleep serenely safe from the town below. Our family have lived safely in this tower house for several hundred years here in San Giacomo, Italy.

Lately, one drawback of living in a Tower House has began to bother me. There's a cool breeze at night in our tower house but it's embarrassing to hear our neighbor argue with his wife. For some reason acoustic sounds travel very well at the level we live and sleep in and I can here our neighbors from the packed streets below arguing for hours and hours when they lay in bed with their wives. Sometimes I wish I didn't understand the Italian language for what they say would make a Portuguese sailor blush.

It's sad to sleep alone in a hard bed in a tower house but the Italian breezes at night are comfortable and keep me company after midnight while I worry and plan over the Family cloth business here in our humble hill town in San Giacomo, Italy. Still it disturbs me to hear my neighbors wife's hostile tone of voice when she argues and fusses with her Husband very late at night many feet below my window.

Better to sleep alone I suppose than to have your dreams interrupted by fussing and arguing.