Look Away—Or Don’t: The Moth Radio Hour
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What incident prompts the host to reflect on witnessing and looking away?
This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Kate Tellers. The other night, I was walking home from the subway with my two children, ages 8 and 10. We had just crossed an intersection when we heard squealing tires immediately followed by the crunch of metal. When we turned around, there were two people lying in the street next to a smashed up motorcycle. I knew two things immediately. I had to call 911, and my children could not witness this. I quickly told them to turn around with their backs to the street and me as I described to the dispatcher what I was witnessing. After help was confirmed, I turned around to my children to see their tiny backs, rigid, lit up by flashing blue and red lights as the sound of sirens grew closer.
They looked so innocent. I do not regret preserving some of that. Sometimes the right thing to do is to look away, and other times we need to look life straight in the eyes. In this hour, we'll explore stories from people who are grappling with this conundrum. And for all you big-hearted people out there, I confirmed with a detective later that the two men in the intersection survived. They will, thankfully, be fine. Our first story comes from Allie Griswold, who told us at a story slam in London, England. Here's Allie.
So I love my flat, except for its window. There's nothing inherently wrong with the window. It's even double glazed. The problem is that it looks directly into my neighbor's shower. This is the main window in my flat. It's the one I face when I'm sitting on my couch, when I'm eating dinner at my table. It's impractical to keep it covered at all times. It is unavoidable, as were they when they were showering. I've never met my neighbors in the building next door, but I feel they were intimately acquainted. They were either very clean or very dirty. I'm unclear which, but as far as I was concerned, at least one of them was in the shower at all times, and often both of them together, having enthusiastic shower sex.
I considered what to do about this. I thought I'm an adult, I should be able to work out a mature solution to this problem. We all live on the top floor of our respective buildings and it would be perfectly reasonable for them to assume they're in the privacy of their own home. I felt like it was my civic and neighborly duty to let them know. So I decided to go about it in the most British way possible by writing them a very apologetic note. I started with, I'm sorry, which after several years of living in this country, I think is the best way to start a conversation with any British person. So I say, dear next door neighbors, I'm so sorry for the awkwardness of this note. I just wanted to let you know that your shower window isn't as opaque as you might think it is.
Actually, it's pretty see-through in case you wanted to get a curtain. Wishing you well, kind regards, all the best, Allie." Early the next morning, I tiptoe over to my neighbor's flat. I've addressed the note to top floor flat because I don't know their names. I don't even know their flat number. I put it through the mail slot and I run back to my building. A week goes by, nothing changes. The showering and the shower sex continue apace. At this point, I'm forced to conclude there's one of two options. Option one, they read my note and they don't care. Option two, which seems to me far more likely, they didn't get or didn't read my note. I resigned myself to the situation, and in the meantime, I tell everyone else in my building about it too.
And so a couple months later, my neighbors in the flat directly below mine, Alex in Georgia, come by with some news. They tell me that the flat in the building next door is up for sale, and their friends are buying it. They've already told their friends about the shower window and their friends are planning to get a curtain. I'm like, amazing. And what an incredible sitcom level solution to my sitcom level apartment problem. When are they moving in? Home sales close slowly in the UK, but several more months down the line, their friends move in.
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