Foresight (Incomplete)

  I was a landlord of a set of apartment rooms. Skyscraper housing comes cheaper nowadays compared to years ago. I knew almost all the tenants over my twenty years working as a landlord except for one peculiar lady on the 37^th floor.

  The boarding contract and rooms registry both say that the lady lives in room 3732. However, contrary to this, I have never seen her before. When I took up this job, the previous landlord , a old man, had always stressed this one thing to me when introducing me to the job. Never disturb the tenant living in room 3732, no matter the circumstances. Any further attempts to elicit some explanation as to why were promptly dismissed with a thick silence.

  Anyways, I had no need to approach any particular tenant unless I had to request for an overdue payment or fulfil some maintenance requests such as damaged water pipes or electrical outages or something like that. Nothing too out of the ordinary for such an old building. It’s quite amazing how nobody has condemned the building yet.

  Strangely, the tenant living in room 3732 has never requested anything from me. She must be some hands-on kind of person, always insisting to do things that need a little elbow grease themselves.

  The old landlord gave me the spare keys to every room in the vicinity except for room 3732’s. He explained there would never be a need to visit her.

  The old landlord always gave me weird instructions on receiving payments for the tenant living in room 3732 for rent. He said that she was the only one whom he allowed to pay in such a way; he wouldn’t charge anybody else except her this way. It was only on the night of first day of April, he said, that she would leave a cheque to pay for her rent outside my doorstep. I assumed he was joking. On the first day of April was April Fool’s. Only a fool would believe such.

  A year passed and I was slowly accustomed to the job of a landlord. It was the first day of April. I carried out my day as usual. On that night, I heard my doorbell ring. I answered the door to find no one behind. Laid on the floor was a cheque denoted in my name. It seemed that the name of the tenant living in the room 3732 was named Luann Blakesley. It wasn’t a joke as I had thought. But why April Fool’s day?

  I dialled the old landlord’s number to get him to cough out some information on Luann Blakesley.

  “Hello? Mr Warren? Rowland Warren? This is Chandler Ruderson. The new landlord at Glassburn.”

  “You lad? What’s the matter? Been a year since I last heard from you.”

  “I called to inquire bout’ the lady living in room 3732.”

  The was a short silence before the old landlord spoke.

  “Never ask about her, lad. Never talk to her. Never visit her. Leave her alone and all will be well.”

  “But...”

  “Lad, you are too persistent. If you want to know her origins so bad, I figure I might as well tell you.”

  “Really?”

  “The lady is named Luann Blakesley. She used to be a famous painter and my wife. One day, she was invited to some art exhibition which she attended. There, some fan of her works gave her some ancient paintbrush. She went home, happy about the paintbrush. The next morning, she had inspiration to paint thus, picked up the ancient brush and got to work. She painted the 9/11. Before it happened, I might add. Next day, 9/11 happened. She painted the street out her window except, she added an extra detail, an All-American Pancake House; Mother Paula’s. Month or two later, one in fact did open up. The paintbrush allows her to paint the future. She alone possesses the power to change the world. He can paint anything she wants to happen. She painted the US Election and decided the winner. Barrack Obama. She is some special lady. When I said she was my wife, I meant ex-wife. We divorced earlier on the year before she got the ancient paintbrush. I had let her stay where she resides today for free awhile before she insisted she pays full rent.”

  “What kind of drugs you having? I want some too. Must be strong stuff.”

  “What? No. Believe it or not, that’s her origin story. What were you expecting exactly? For me to tell you she got bit by some radioactive spider and became spider-woman?”

  “You must be high.”                                     

  “No! If you are going to be rude to me, I’m going to end the call right now!”

  “Whatever.”

  Mr Warren hung up.

  TBC