![]() She got up and adjusted her new curtains. Still, she might have fallen asleep-but the room wasn’t dark enough. They still couldn’t seem to get past the tricky part. She bundled herself up in a bedsheet and tried to sleep. Harp music wasn’t so difficult to sleep through. They could have taken up the drums, or the electric guitar, or the bagpipes. She supposed that it could be worse, as the harp music started up again that night at-what was it, 11:30? Daft time for harp practice. She stumbled blearily about the library, drinking an excessive amount of coffee and cursing the sun and harps and everything in between. She suffered through the relentless clumsy music for a solid half hour before she could even try to sleep. She tried shoving a pillow over her head but then she couldn’t breathe. Of course the night she finally managed to get her room properly dark would be the night her neighbour took up the harp. It was coming through the wall of her bedroom-the wall which divided her from her neighbours. The first few bars of a song, then as soon as it reached what must be the tricky part it would stutter into silence. At first she thought it was a recording, but it couldn’t be, for every so often the music would falter and begin again. She opened her eyes in the darkness, and listened. It was soft, but not soft enough not to wake her. Just as she was starting to drift off, sprawled on her stomach amidst untidy sheets, the music started. She put up her new curtains and at last, at last it was dark enough to sleep, and yet. Was it the music first? Yes, it was the music. It was the night after they arrived that things started to get strange. ![]() One night, lying awake, she toyed with her phone and impulsively ordered herself a set of black-out curtains. It was even worse in her new flat, where the window faced east and where there was a streetlamp precisely positioned to shine into her room. And the light the sun stayed up late and came back early. She tried using a fan, but couldn’t sleep through the noise. She slept in socks and knickers, and sweated. She could have stood the heat if she could kick off her blankets and sleep naked, but she couldn’t stand to have all her skin exposed. It was the heat, she always told people when explaining her daytime exhaustion-the heat, and the light. CONTENT NOTE: brief description of sexual harassment.
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