Evil Neighbor
Having read more than few of Steve Taylor’s stories, I must say he is a very talented writer. He writes different style short stories which are very interesting to read, and I can even see myself as one of the characters. Today I read the story which is called “The City of the Future”. It was my choice to read the story, and I think I made a great one. This short story was about a friendly family who moved into new house but weren’t too lucky with their neighbor. The whole story was based on how their family was struggling to make peace with the neighbor. Their neighbor was an old lady Mrs. Dorrit whom nobody saw because she never came out of her house. Even though the family never faced Mrs. Dorrit in person, she still managed to show how mean, careless, and unfriendly she was.
When people a get new house, one of the things to consider is neighbors because they are the people who will surround you for the time of staying at the place. In the story The City of the Future, the family had to deal with the worst neighbor, Mrs. Dorrit. She was very mean toward the lovely family. On the day the family moved into the house, the mother baked cookies so that they could visit their neighbor. However, when they approached Mrs. Dorrit’s house and knocked on the door for a couple of times, no one came out even though the lights were on in the house. The mother decided to write a note and leave it next to the door. The note stated
“MRS.DORRIT, SORRY WE MISSED YOU. THIS IS JUST A LITLE GET ACQUINTED GIFT FROM THE MORRIE FAMILY. WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO MEETING YOU SOON!” This note showed that the family was really nice and respectful and showed some love to people around them. However, Mrs. Dorrit never answered the note in fact, the next morning the Morrie family found the plate and the cookies crushed next to their house. This behavior illustrated how rude and impolite Mrs. Dorrit was to people who tried to bring some love and happiness to her life. As days passed by, Morrie family tried sending her flowers and a sorry note for bothering with the cookies, but the answers was the same as in the previous case, broken glass and torn up flowers. Not only was Mrs. Dorrit mean but she also never cared about people around her.
One day the Morrie family decided to have a little barbeque party and sent her an invitation as well not to make her feel left out. As the family friends came over to have fun at the party, Mrs. Dorrit turned on the loud radio and never turned it down. The music was annoying to everyone ,and no one could enjoy the party. But Mrs. Dorrit never cared whether or not people were able to have fun. The loud music kept playing till ten thirty at night and no one could do anything about it. From that day on, she would start playing loud music at seven in the morning and keep it until ten thirty at night. The family had to go away from their house because the music was so loud that people could not communicate. They started to have headaches and had to walk around with ear plugs. Even though they had tried talking to her and asking to stop playing the music, nothing could stop Mrs. Dorris. They tried sending the note once again which said “MRS. DORRIT I APOLOGIZE IF I UPSET YOU. I DON’T MEAN ANY HARM, I REALLY AM JUST TRYING TO MAKE FRIENDS.” But she never cared about what they were saying she never bothered to come out or to even answers to them. Living in that house became a disaster to the family. It is hard to get a new house and realize that not everything is the way you want it to be. Having a mean neighbor is unfixable; therefore they have no way of leaving in the house in the perfect way. We all want our houses to be in a nice neighborhood, but the family never got it.
Having friends is really important but sometimes people are just so closed in and unfriendly, just like Mrs. Dorrit was in the story. No matter what the family tried to do nothing could change her. It was impossible to even talk to her because she never came out. One day the family decided to get together and tried talking to her face to face in order to change her a little. They went over, but again the same result turned out. Mrs. Dorrit didn’t even open the door in fact, she put a sign next to her door saying “BE AWARE OF A BIG DOG,” which she did not actually have. She was just so unfriendly that she had to post that sign there to keep everyone away from her house. The family never found the way to communicate with the neighbor. Communications is very important for most people, talking is the way we express our thoughts and feeling. In the story the family never experienced those feeling from Mrs. Dorrit.
Having read the story and considering the fact that the end of the story was up to me, I think as the result Morrie’s family will move out. I felt extremely bad for Morrie’s family because having such a mean neighbor is not an easy task to take. Since I remember myself I have always had great neighbors, and it is even harder for me to realize how the Morrie family had gone through that.