Neighbors

“The Wifi broke down?” Coulson asked, bewildered.

“Yes, it broke down – and that’s why I’m in the middle of said crisis.” The woman rubbed her temples, her eyes squeezed shut. For a long time, she just stood there, breathing in deeply and shoulders just slightly trembling. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice muffled and thick with desperation. “I know that this is really none of your fault, and you’re just the poor guy who got stuck living next to me – but I’ve been living off of nothing but fruit snacks and coffee and I’m pretty damn sure my professor is gonna kill me – and my roommate’s off on some stupid field trip with her own class, where she could act as the star pupil – and my apartment’s a mess – and I don’t know how to fix the stupid sink – and…”

Coulson stood there helplessly as the woman’s voice spiraled down into a hopeless mumble. She looked more tired than angry now, and there was something incredibly pitiful about her stance.

“Listen,” he said after some time, “I don’t really know how to fix a sink – and I don’t know a single thing about getting the Wifi back up – but if you’ve been living off of nothing but fruit snacks and coffee…well, I’m pretty sure we can do something about that.”