Your neighbor just knocked. He says his power’s out… but why won’t he leave? He lingers on the threshold, rain freckling his shoulders, flashlight dangling like a guilty secret. The hallway bulb flickers—on, off, on—casting his shadow in stuttering Morse. He asks to borrow a candle, yet his eyes keep drifting past you into the apartment, as if searching for something that hums in the dark. When you hand him the matchbox, his fingers don’t quite close around it. Instead he whispers, “Do you ever hear the walls breathing?”