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The walls in Erik’s apartment building were paper thin. He had never really minded this—sometimes his neighbors were interesting to spy on, but mostly they just... Didn’t exist. Even with the low price of rent for the small apartments in the building, tenants were few and far between. That was just how Erik liked it. The building had a reputation, and if he’d had a hand in that—well. Who could blame him? The venn diagram of noisy neighbors and people who were afraid of ghosts was almost a complete circle. He felt no guilt in exploiting this.
That’s why he was incredibly peeved to find that someone had had the audacity to move in next door.
Christine Daaé was a woman who’d suddenly found herself both single and needing a place for her and her almost two year old son, Gustave, to live. The place with the Google reviews warning that the building was “haunted” was the only place she could afford, and so it was where they ended up.
Erik knew none of this, of course. All he knew was that where there had once been blessed silence, there was a near non-stop song playing in all its hideous glory. Erik despised it. He hated it. He hated the repetitive refrain, he hated the tinny, high pitched voices, he hated how it looped with no real start or end. It disgusted him to the core of his being.
He didn’t last a full week before he finally lost it.
Christine was minding her own business, trying to cook an almost healthy dinner for the two of them. Gustave was on the couch, iPad in hand, eyes glued to the screen as he listened to his favorite song.
Suddenly someone was pounding on the other side of the wall.
“Turn that off!” a man’s voice yelled through the wall.
Christine scowled at the wall, going about her cooking. It was another ramen noodle night. She ignored her asshole neighbor.
Erik listened with dismay as nothing happened. With each repetition of the song, a little piece of his soul died inside.
“I can hear what you’re listening to!” he shouted, fuming. “You have shit taste in music!”
“Hey!” Christine left the kitchen to yell at her living room wall. “I’m not listening to it, my baby is!”
“Yeah well your baby has shit taste in music,” Erik replied.
“Excuse me? I’m going to report you to the manager!”
“Not if I report you first! You’ve been playing that damn song all week!”
“Hey screw you—you’re the one yelling through my wall right now!”
“Stop playing that asinine song or move out! I will get the manager to evict you!”
“Wow, big man! You want to throw a woman and her baby out on the street? Will that really make you feel better?”
Erik paused, pressing his ear against the wall.
“Are you—are you crying?” he asked, suddenly confused.
Christine wiped at the tears on her cheek.
“What do you care?” she snarled.
“I’m-I’m sorry—“
The words felt foreign on his tongue. He’d never said them before.
“Yeah just wait till next month—I’ll probably be gone by then anyway. You’ll never have to be bothered by me again!”
“Why?”
She snorted.
“Why are you leaving?” he asked again, puzzled.
She grabbed the iPad from Gustave, who started to squeal at the loss of his video. She turned the volume up to the maximum level and gave it back to him, then returned to the kitchen to turn off the stove.
Erik listened, dumbfounded. He was incensed at louder music but also wanted to know more about this intriguing woman who got into shouting matches through walls.
But she didn’t return, and she rudely didn’t answer his question. He huffed.
Erik had spent an unfortunate youth caring very much what other people thought of him. It was replaced by an adolescence where he pretended he didn’t care, but did. That had faded into an adulthood where he truly did not care, unless it was to take glee at the suffering he could cause. He masked his face out of propriety—small children didn’t need to be scarred for life—but he was not above using what nature had given him (a hideous visage, and a cruel tongue) to get what he wanted or needed.
The apartment next to him was silent. That was what he had wanted. So why did the knowledge that he’d made a woman cry in the process of obtaining that peace keep him from sleeping that night?
Christine was fretful the next day as she dropped Gustave off at daycare. The next month was swiftly approaching, and with it would come the next bill for daycare services. She couldn’t afford it. If she couldn’t afford someone to watch the baby, she couldn’t go in to work. If she couldn’t go in to work, she’d lose her job. If she lost her job—
She tried to focus on her busy day of medical coding and wondered if it was too soon to ask for a raise.
She picked up Gustave after work and drove home, keeping a wary eye on the gas tank needle as it hovered just above empty.
“How was your day, honey?” she asked Gustave as they climbed the stairs to their apartment.
“Good.”
“Did you color lots of pictures?”
She unlocked the door, and they entered.
“Yeah!”
“What did you color?”
“Baby shark!”
She smiled.
“Okay, are you ready for dinner?”
“Yeah! Chicken nugget! Chicken nugget!”
She went to the freezer and pulled out the plain store brand bag of chicken nuggets. There was just enough left for him. She poured them on a plate and microwaved them, watching them spin in the middle as the little lightbulb illuminated them. Sometimes she felt like a chicken nugget, getting burnt on the outside, still freezing on the inside, and spinning endlessly on a glass platter of futility.
The microwave dinged and she pulled out the watered-down ketchup from the fridge, adding some to the side of his plate.
“Chicken nugget time!” she said cheerfully as she put the plate on the table and Gustave climbed up onto his chair.
“Yay!”
She got herself some leftovers from the fridge, canned cream of mushroom soup, also watered down. A handful of saltine crackers went into it, and she sat down to dinner with her son.
After dinner she got him ready for bed, and after an obligatory half hour of listening to his favorite music, he finally fell asleep.
Erik listened through the wall to that hateful song. He couldn’t help but notice that it was quieter today. It finally ended, followed by an hour of silence.
“Raoul?”
Her voice was small and soft but he could hear it all the same.
“I was just wondering if you were going to—you know. I checked my bank account tonight and I didn’t see—“
Erik held his breath, listening.
“Um, it’s just—well I have to pay for his daycare... Yes every month... Because someone has to watch him... I have to work!... No, I know we weren’t married, but you promised—.... Because he’s your son!... What’s that supposed to mean?”
He heard her sniffle softly.
“How dare you. You were the one who cheated, not me... I’m not surprised that you don’t care what happens to me, but I can’t believe you’d treat your son like this.”
Erik waited and listened, but realized she must have hung up. He was slightly annoyed—he wanted to hear more details. It occurred to him that he didn’t even know her name.
The next night the baby was fussy and wouldn’t quiet. He could hear her trying everything to get him to calm, but nothing seemed to work.
“Raoul?”
He could hear her worried voice through the wall.
“I know it’s late, I’m sorry. But he has a fever. I don’t have any more liquid Tylenol, and I don’t have any money to get some. Could you—Raoul! I’ll pay you back!... You’re impossible! I’m glad I didn’t give him the de Chagny name!”
Erik was intrigued. Raoul de Chagny?
Still the baby kept crying.
Erik was surprised to find that what he felt in that moment was not disgust at having to hear him, but something else instead, something he hadn’t felt in a long time. He felt badly for the kid. Poor little not-de Chagny. Was this sympathy? It had been so long. He felt sad, too, for the boy’s mother, who was trying her best but was utterly helpless to soothe her son.
Erik got up and pushed his electric keyboard against the shared wall, flipped it on, and turned the volume all the way up. After hearing it so many times, he’d never forget those refrains.
Christine paused in her rocking of Gustave, who was held tightly in arms. She was too shocked by the sounds of “Baby Shark” being played on what sounded like a piano coming from the apartment next door. Gustave, too, stopped his crying, not having expected there to be music suddenly.
“Do you hear that?” she asked him, a smile forming on her face.
“Shark?” he asked and sniffled.
“That’s Baby Shark!”
Erik continued to play the song that would not cease tormenting him. But maybe, by his own torment, the soul on the other side of the wall could be soothed. It was a decent transaction.
Christine felt new tears begin to form in her eyes, this time for an entirely different reason than they’d been forming just moments ago. She began to sing the words to the song.
Erik felt a jolt of electricity go through him as he heard the beautiful voice to ever exist float through his walls. There was nothing that could be better than hearing her...
If only she wasn’t singing the fucking shark song.
Erik wasn’t sure how long he played that repetitive song, but eventually, he heard her speak and he stopped.
“Hey. I just wanted to say thank you,” she leaned against the wall as she told him. “He’s asleep now.”
“What’s wrong with him? Is he okay?”
“He has a fever. I think he’s sick.”
“I heard your phone call,” Erik said.
“You did? Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be loud—“
“You don’t have any medicine for him?”
“No.”
There was a long silence.
“I’m sorry, again. I’ll try to be better about the noise. And thank you for the music. That was really sweet of you.”
She heard a soft noise at her front door.
“That should be enough for what he needs,” he said at last.
“Huh?”
“Under your door.”
She got up and saw an envelope had been slipped under her door. She opened it and found a twenty dollar bill inside.
“Oh! I can’t accept this—“
Or could she? She hesitated.
“Why would you do this for me?” she asked, confused.
“So the baby will stop crying and I can finally get some damn peace around here.”
She half laughed and wiped away a tear.
“Thank you. I’ll pay you back when I get my paycheck.”
“What’s your name?”
“Christine.”
Christine. A name fit for an angel, just like her voice.
“What’s yours?” she asked, and nearly jumped out of his skin.
When was the last time someone had asked his name?
“Erik,” he said, wondering at how he even remembered it. This was the most he’d talked to someone without demanding to speak to the manager.
“Thank you, Erik.”
She stashed the money in her purse as she went to get Gustave and gently picked him up, trying not to wake him too much. Safely buckled into his car seat, she drove to the drug store to get some Tylenol, gave him some as soon as they got back in the car, and returned with a much more peaceful boy. She went to sleep that night thanking her lucky stars for Erik.
Raoul de Chagny. The boy was easy enough to find. An unusual name, a public Facebook profile that contained a generous amount of check-ins—it didn’t take Erik very long.
He scrolled back far enough and saw pictures of Christine next to him. They were hugging and happy. There was an “it’s a boy!” announcement of her pregnancy, and then a picture of Raoul holding the baby, then one of all three of them together when the baby was a little older. Christine didn’t look as happy in that one. None of them did. And then she was gone. It was only two weeks later, judging by the timestamps, that a new young woman appeared in the photos with Raoul.
Raoul apparently worked for the company his brother owned, some big tech nonsense that dealt in cryptocurrency and stocks. Erik scowled at the photo of him. He could definitely afford to pay child support for his son, he apparently just didn’t want to.
Perhaps he’d be changing his mind on that, though.
Erik was there outside the bar on Friday night. Raoul came here nearly every week, according to his online bragging. Erik kept to the shadows, avoiding the handful of security cameras. After a while, a blond young man was calling goodbye to his friends as he stumbled out of the bar door and onto the street.
“Are you Raoul de Chagny?” Erik asked, his voice low and rumbling in the dark.
Raoul squinted at the man dressed all in black. He had a scarf pulled up over his mouth and a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes.
“Yeah,” he replied easily enough. “Are you my Uber driver?”
“I’m your conscience, you little shit,” Erik snarled as he grabbed Raoul by the lapels of his polo shirt and shook him. “You don’t have enough money for your baby to eat dinner and go to the doctor but you can throw back five beers with the boys every week? I know what you’ve been up to! What’s the matter with you? You don’t care about your son? Huh? HUH? You’re pathetic! Pay your bills you stupid fuck! Be responsible for once in your worthless life, you revolting slime! If you don’t start providing for your kid, you’re gonna regret it more than you’ve ever regretted anything, do you hear me?! GIVE HER THE MONEY!”
Raoul fell to his knees as he was harshly shaken by the stranger. The man’s scarf had fallen down and his hat had been pushed back until Raoul was staring at less of a face and more of a noseless skull just inches from his own face. He gaped, slack-jawed, as this skeleton accosted him, too drunk to scream out his terror as he was flopped about like a rag doll.
“Don’t make me tell you again, de Chagny!” Erik spit as he dropped Raoul to the ground then disappeared.
On his hands and knees now in the dark alley, Raoul finally found it in him to scream quietly. But the skeleton was long gone.
He didn’t tell anyone about what had happened that night, half convinced that he’d been far too drunk and his own mind had made the whole thing up. He briefly considered that Christine had hired someone to beat him up, but Christine had no money and besides that, she was far too sweet to even consider ever doing something like that. No, the skeleton had said it was his conscience, and he supposed it was right.
Two days later Christine received an envelope in the mail from Raoul, a generous check inside. There was a note as well, but all it said was “sorry” next to a poorly drawn sad face. Christine never knew what had come over him to change his mind, but whatever it was, she was glad it had.
She no longer had to worry about where the money was coming from for Gustave’s daycare, and she had plenty to buy him—and herself—food that didn’t have to be stretched and scrimped. She didn’t have to worry about running out of gas in her car. Life was looking up.
She was surprised to find that her mysterious neighbor was not opposed to carrying on a handful of conversations through the wall, and even more surprised to find how much she enjoyed speaking to him. She didn’t learn what he did to earn money, but she found out his passion was writing music, and that he played the keyboard—something he had, up until now, been doing with headphones on. She shared her own teenage dreams of being an opera singer, and a little bond was formed between them. He took to playing classical pieces at times when she was there, and she found herself singing along to them, much to her son’s delight. Through the walls, Erik could hear the little boy trying to sing along, and it tugged at heartstrings he didn’t even know he had.
Erik was over the moon with this arrangement. He hadn’t realized how much a friendly voice could bring into his life. She still made annoying noises, yes, the slam of drawers and the baby crying over stupid things, the tv playing and the shower running, but he found them somehow less annoying than they had been before. Life was good for Erik. If he could keep things this way forever, he would.
But all things must come to an end, eventually.
He hadn’t meant for her to see him. It had been an accident. The lure of the Amazon package on his doorstep had been too great. He’d opened the door only wide enough to reach out and get the box he’d ordered, but he hadn’t realized that someone was coming around the corner.
Christine was beautiful. That instant he first saw her seemed to stretch on forever. His eyes widened. Her messy brown curls were put in a half bun that was falling out towards the end of the day. Rumpled jeans and sensible shoes and a plain black T-shirt. She was carrying a small child in one arm. She looked exhausted but even still, Erik thought she looked like an angel.
A brief look of surprise flashed over her face as she saw him—saw his mask—for the first time. Then she smiled, a warm, sweet smile that made Erik’s insides twist.
“Hey,” she greeted him.
“Hey,” he breathed, and grabbed his package before slamming the door shut.
How dare he gaze at an angel so brazenly? He chided himself over it. She was beauty and goodness and all things lovely in the world, and he was a worm, a disgusting goblin. Terrible! Why couldn’t he have waited just a minute longer before opening his door? He’d ruined everything now. She would hate him once she realized he was ugly.
Christine noticed her neighbor was quiet the next few days. He didn’t complain about the latest song Gustave was obsessed with, he didn’t say anything when the boy accidentally bumped his head and became loudly inconsolable, he didn’t even respond when she tried singing a song from Carmen.
By the end of the week without so much as a peep from the man, Christine began to fear he’d keeled over and died in there. What if he was sick and had no one to take care of him? It made her heart ache to think about it.
The next day was Saturday, her day off, and in the afternoon she took a crock of homemade chicken noodle soup with her as she knocked on his door.
Erik heard the knock. He ignored it. A solicitor, he was certain. They would leave soon enough. They always did.
She knocked again.
“Erik?”
He froze. Was that—could it be? But why?
“Erik, are you in there?”
He shot up from the desk he’d been working at and cracked the door open, just enough for them to talk but not enough for her to see in.
“Christine? Are you okay? Is everything alright?” he asked anxiously. He knew things must be dire for her if she was seeking help from the masked monster next door.
“I’m fine,” she said, trying to squint through the tiny crack of the door. “But what about you?”
“What about me?” he asked stupidly.
“Are you okay? I haven’t heard from you, and I thought maybe you were sick or something.... I brought you some soup...” she trailed off weakly, starting to feel silly for overreacting.
He opened the door a little more, confusing in his golden eyes as he looked from her down to the crock of soup in her hands. Why would she do this? For him?
“No,” he said slowly. “I’m not sick.”
“Oh,” she said and hung her head sheepishly. “Well... You can still have the soup.”
She held it out to him.
“Christine no! I can’t take food from you!”
She looked taken aback, and he realized she might be offended at his words.
“I can’t take food from you because I know you struggle to make ends meet,” he hastily explained. “You should eat that soup.”
She shook her head.
“No, no—I want you to have it! I made it for you!”
“I’m not stealing food from you, Christine,” he said disdainfully.
She laughed lightly.
“Look, how about this. How about you take this soup I made, and then one night you cook a meal for me. Then we’ll be even. How does that sound?”
It sounded too good to be true. He hesitated, then opened the door a little more.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course!”
She beamed as he took the crock from her.
“Thank you, Christine,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.
They said their farewells and he took the warm crock inside, carrying it as if it were the most precious thing on earth. No one had ever cooked food for him before. She had made this for him, thinking of him the whole while... It was almost more than he could bear.
He had to stifle sobs as he ate it, the warmth of the soup spreading through his body. It was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted, not because it was particularly well made, but because it had been made with love.
He met her the next day on the way to pick up the mail.
“Oh! Hello,” he said, hoping she couldn’t see the sweat rolling down the inside of his mask. He definitely hadn't been waiting inside his own apartment with his ear pressed against the wall to hear when she went to check her own mail so he could just happen to check it at the same time.
“Hi Erik,” she said with a smile.
“Do you want to have dinner with me the day after tomorrow? If you aren’t busy? Is that okay? I can do a different day if you want.”
She laughed lightly at his nervousness.
“That day works just fine for me, Erik,” she told him. “I’ll see you then, okay?”
“Okay,” he breathed.
Christine was coming to his apartment!
Oh shit.
Christine was coming to his apartment.
He hadn’t fully realized how much of a pigsty he lived in until faced with the reality of having another human being in his apartment, and not just any human, but Christine. Something would have to be done.
He scooped all of the empty green tea bottles into a recycling bag. He fished the empty chip bags out from under the couch. He picked up all the burnt matches from the shelves. He tore down the giant poster with the Polaroids of all the neighbors who used to live next door with the captions of when and how he’d forced them to leave, and tucked it into the back of a closet. He sprayed half a bottle of room deodorizer in an attempt to banish that stink he could never find the source of.
Once his abode was somewhat presentable, he began to collect the ingredients into a shopping list. After this was completed, he set out to brave the grocery store, something he normally only did at night. But he would shop in the middle of the day for her.
Christine was getting the mail when she saw him returning from his shopping trip, several bags in each hand. Her eyes widened.
“Oh! Do you need any help?”
“No, I’ve got it,” he assured her.
“Would you like any help cooking?” she offered.
Erik hesitated.
“That—that would be lovely,” he said. “It’s chicken and prawns—you aren’t allergic, are you?”
He had a brief moment of panic that his dinner might accidentally kill her.
“Not at all! That sounds delicious. I’ll see you in a bit!”
Lovely was just one of the things having her in his kitchen was. It was also thrilling, terrifying, anxiety-inducing, surreal, and slightly erotic.
She was kind and polite, and made little jokes here and there.
“I’m glad the walls are so thin. I can keep an ear on the babysitter and not even have to worry!”
He smiled awkwardly. She was such a marvel, existing here in this space that was his. He wondered if she’d be amenable to the idea of carving out a hole for a door between their two apartments.
“Can you get a bowl out of that cupboard?” he asked, nodding towards the cupboard in question.
He was leaning down to set the timer on the oven, and didn’t realize the cupboard door was still open when he suddenly stood up. There was a clashing noise as he bonked his head on the underpart of the door, and then a clatter as his mask fell to the ground.
Christine gasped.
“Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry!” she cried. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt!”
Erik fell to his knees and scrabbled for the mask. But it was closer to her, and she stooped down and grabbed it, holding it out to him.
“Are you okay?” she asked urgently. “Do you need an ice bag for your head?”
He looked up at her through his splayed hands, trying to hide his lack of a face, his eyes full of anguish. She had already seen. He slowly removed his hands to reach for the mask. Her eyes flickered briefly over his face, showed no reaction, then looked back to his eyes.
“Do you need some ice?” she repeated, a little slower this time.
He reaffixed the mask, entirely confused. He stood, at a loss.
“No? I don’t—I don't—“
“Here,” she moved to the freezer, getting some ice cubes gathered together in a plastic baggie. “Better safe than sorry. And I am sorry, again. I should have closed the cupboard quicker!”
He shook his head, holding the ice bag on top of it.
“It’s not your fault,” he told her.
How was she acting like everything was normal? Like he was just another person like anyone else?
But she was. They finished cooking, and kept talking, and then they took their food to the table and began to eat.
Erik had lit a few candles in the middle of the table, and it made her smile to see. There was soft jazz music playing from somewhere. It seemed like an overreaction to the gift of a crock of soup, but being doted over was a new experience for her, and she found she could quickly get used to it.
Dinner seemed to end all too soon—not because they’d run out of things to talk about, but because she’d only paid the babysitter for four hours. As Erik walked her from the dining room to the front door, he found himself wistful and wishing the evening could go on forever.
She hesitated by the door, a little lopsided smile on her face.
“Hey, this is silly, but—could I hug you?”
Erik’s brain short-circuited. A hug?
“Uhhhh okay.”
He was very still as Christine put her arms around him. He couldn’t remember when he’d last been hugged, if ever. Hesitantly, he placed his arms gently around her too.
“Thank you,” she said as she squeezed him.
He felt like his heart had stopped beating. Chrisitne, resting her head on his chest, Christine, so very close to him.
It ended after an eternity and far too soon. He’d be lying to say he’d never he never imagined things going farther with his neighbor, but he imagined lots of things he never expected to happen. What if he was famous? What if he looked like everyone else? What if he had a bunch of friends and family who loved him? What if Christine was his girlfriend? None of those things were realistic, and yet--
Christine had hugged him, and was smiling at him now as she pulled away.
“We should do this again sometime,” she said.
“Yeah,” he agreed, in a daze.
His mind would replay that moment over and over again that night.
For her part, she couldn’t help but smile the rest of the evening. How funny it was that they both had such similar taste in music, how much they both loved the drama and sweeping emotion of opera, and yet what had brought them together was not something from the world of high art, but the childish song that her son wanted to play nonstop.
For the first time since her breakup with Raoul, she felt able to think about beginning to date again. Her hours at her job were finally steady, Raoul was sending monthly checks to help with Gustave’s care, and the frantic edge to her life was at last starting to soften.
With that newfound softness and peace, she found her neighbor was surprisingly attractive. Perhaps not in the conventional sense—almost certainly not. But he was attentive and seemed to care, and she didn’t know if he was actually a very sweet man once you got to know him or if her standards had just slipped really low. Either way, he didn’t mind that she had a kid, and he was protective of them both, and though she knew he was definitely listening through the walls at given moment, he also never pushed for anything more than what she was willing to give when they were together.
Each week they had dinner together twice, once in each apartment. He had begun to give her piano lessons, something she’d always wanted to try. She often had him over to watch tv after work and after Gustave had gone to bed.
Gustave took well to the stranger in their home. He eyed him curiously, then demanded that Erik sing Baby Shark with him, a request which Erik awkwardly obliged, much to Christine’s—and Gustave’s—delight.
When Erik heard it was the boy’s second birthday coming up, he surprised Christine by buying a tiny working piano for him.
“Erik! You’re too kind!”
“Now he can play just like his mother,” Erik told her as Gustave began to bang on the keys of the piano.
“Oh, but you’ll hear it through the walls.”
“I don’t mind.”
It never ceased to amaze Erik how much his miserable mood had improved since Christine had come into his life. Before, the thought of a two year old playing a toy piano next door would have led to thoughts of arson. Now, it only made him smile.
“I hear the zoo has these new ring-tailed lemurs,” Erik said one night during dinner. “Maybe Gustave would like to see them.”
“That sounds like fun! We should go this weekend!”
The three of them went that weekend.
Erik hadn’t thought his plan through. The zoo was crowded, and he got a number of glances and stares as he Christine walked side by side, her pushing Gustave in a stroller. They finally arrived at the lemur exhibit, and Erik got to stare at some little monkey creatures with yellow eyes just like him.
Gustave reached out to them from his stroller.
“Friend?” he asked. “Friend?”
“Thanks for suggesting this, Erik,” Christine said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I love that you don’t mind going places with him,” she continued, nodding towards Gustave. “Not a lot of guys are cool with going on a date and bringing the kid along.”
Erik turned to her, awestruck.
“This is a date?”
She glanced up at him, a wry smile on her face.
“Do you want it to be a date?”
He turned back to the lemurs, gripping the handrail of the fence so tightly his knuckles turned white.
“Yes,” he said finally.
He wanted this to be a date so damn bad.
“Good,” she said. “I want this to be a date, too.”
And with that she leaned up and gently pressed a kiss to the side of his thin lips.
As they left the lemurs and went in search of the ice cream stand, Christine was pushing the stroller with one hand and holding Erik’s hand with the other. Suddenly the stares and glanced didn’t seem to matter anymore.
Erik didn’t know what, exactly, the future was going to hold—besides ice cream, of course—but for once in his life, he was really looking forward to finding out.