call the police.

my apartment is 4b. my neighbors in 4a are clearly in a relationship. i know this because every now and again (more often than is probably good for their mentalities) i hear them fighting. it's pretty brutal fighting, but usually it's just words.

the first time i heard it, i only heard the woman. she was screaming things like "i hate you," "i never loved you," "you're ugly, look at yourself," "you fucking liar," "i hate living here," etc. what i could gather was that he had brought her here under some pretense of fulfilling some goal/plan he had. i found it amusing, and from then on, i did my best to listen whenever i heard the fighting start.

i would go out onto my terrace or open the door to the hallway (as i could hear them better and more clearly from those vantage points), and it was a form of entertainment for me. like a movie without the picture.

it's happened about 4 or five times since then (once a week, really), and it's always about the same thing: how she hates him, etc. i hear her more than i hear him,

today they started fighting, and i opened the windows and went to the door to listen. today she had asked him to finish his drink and clear the table. apparently when he went to clear the table, he only removed one glass and considered himself done, according to her. now this is all hearsay, of course, and it's only one point of view. his voice is too low to hear as clearly as hers, so i only know what he says when he's yelling at the top of his lungs.

it was like any other fight they'd had until i started hearing large objects moving around on their floor. it was at this point that i heard the people (in the hostel across the courtyard) outside talking about the goings on in that apartment. i moved onto the terrace and looked up; there was a cluster of girls at one of the windows a level higher than me. they could see into the couple's bedroom.

at first we smiled at each other, silently communicating a collective thought: how exciting! it wasn't until their faces started to change that i knew anything was really wrong. they could see into the couple's bedroom. they were beating the shit out of each other. the girls' faces were locked in horror, their mouths hanging open, their eyes worried. they no longer looked at me.

the man yelled something about how the woman almost pushed him down the stairs. it was at that point one of the girls turned back to me and said "call the police." i obliged, because this idea had occurred to me even before she said anything.

i called 111 (the new zealand equivalent of 911) and gave them all the information. while i was calling, the man threw something against the wall and it broke. it sounded like it had been made of glass. the woman shrieked like i have never heard in my life. they were threatening to kill each other.

it's no longer funny, or exciting.

the police just came, knocked on my door, and i pointed them in the direction of the argument. it's quiet now.