1C

The olfactory presence on the second floor soon reveals it's origin the further down the hall you walk. The smell of beef stew wafting from beneath the door to 1C is something that immediately desensitises you to the smell of damp and dust present on every other floor. The cook is Natasha Olka.
Natasha moved from Russia to this country squashed into a small space on a ship with her mother, older sister and two younger brothers. She was six at the time. Her mother would tell the children of the promise of a better life when they arrived, far removed from the despair they had to live with at home. Their space was near the ships galley, and every night Natasha would smell what they were cooking. Every night it would be beef stew. When the heat and humidity of this space got to her she would press her nose up to the nearby door of the galley to get a whiff of the stew. This smell imbued her with so much hope that she forgot about the fetid conditions in which she was travelling. Her mother fell ill on he journey and died, leaving her four children to arrive in the country as orphans.
They were almost deported, but the social workers fought to keep them in the country. They then spent years in separate orphanages, The conditions of which were vile. When Natasha would go to eat her supper, usually gruel, she would think back to her time on the ship when the smell of onions and beef gave her the hope she needed to survive, and think if she can only make it through this for another ten years or so she could finally get the life she was promised. However, a few months after leaving this place, she fell pregnant. She had to settle for the cheapest apartment she could get that she could pay for with her meagre salary. She was stuck in her cleaning job: Employers didn't like to employ foreigners, never mind unwed mothers. And so she stayed in Silent Heights for twenty-two years.
She got married to a shopkeeper from the area four years ago, but he has been missing for six months. It was since this time that Natasha had taken to stewing beef every night. However she will not let this pass her lips. When she is done every night, someone on the floor will get a knock on their door and open it to find a Tupperware container with the stew inside. If you answer quickly you may see her skeletal figure lurching back towards her apartment.
Natasha's sole occupation these days seems to be losing weight. She was once a beautiful, robust young woman but now there is no colour in her face. Her Brittle grey hair hangs over her carved face like a curtain and her slender arms hang limp by her protruding hips. She looks so emaciated you'd wonder how managed to carry her own body weight. This all started when her husband David went missing, a man that indeed was not missed by anyone who roams these halls. The shouts echoed down the hall every Friday and Saturday night, and the bone-chilling thud that would always follow couldn't be mistaken for anything other than what it was. Soon after their marriage this began to be a regular occurrence and Natasha become a complete recluse. Her son would visit her every Thursday with any odds and ends she needed, he would stay for an hour and then leave. However since David's disappearance he hasn't stayed longer than took him to deliver the groceries.
As soon as he leaves the cooking begins. As her thought gather she frantically gets the ingredients together. The footsteps in the hall. Light the stove. The banging on the door. Get the pot out. The drunken grunts and ripe breath. Wine, thyme, demiglaze, water. The incoherent shouting. Chop the onions and beef. The fist. Simmer. Going to the drawer. Simmer. Having enough. Simmer. Grabbing the knife. Then the stew begins to bubble and the smell fills the room. All that enters her mind now is the trip on the boat, and the knowledge that things will get better. Things will be better soon, just wait.

2C

Marianne Lewis left her apartment every night at seven o' clock. She would go to a certain type of bar, order her cherry cola and sip it through a straw while she looked for a certain type of man. When she returned to her apartment she would always have company. She had lived here for three years now and had not had a steady job since. Her job as an extra on a few movies here and there was not enough to pay the rent, so she had to resort to exploiting her other talents to keep a roof over her head. If there was one thing Marianne could do well, it was control men.
She had always been well aware of her beauty, she was both revered and reviled for it in her hometown. Her wave blonde hair cascaded down her back moving with her stride. Her piercing, dark brown eyes brought attention to her pale, soft face. Once she caught you in her gaze you were finished. She would cast a quick glance at a man waiting for him to make eye-contact. As soon as he did he would do what they all do, move towards her. She was conscious of how she was dressed, her uniformly red outfit accentuating her figure. She knew how she would look to these men, how they would think she made a living. She didn't consider this false advertising, either way these men would benefit with meeting her.. He would begin by buying drinks. She would always stick to her cherry cola as he moved onto his third or fourth whiskey. Once she decided these men would be inebriated enough to follow her down Ochre street she would suggest returning to her apartment for a chat. Of course, these men would engage in much more than a chat if the followed, which they always did.
As soon as they arrived she would put on the kettle and turn on the radiator, leading the man down to the couch in which they all sat. She would bring him a coffee and he would begin to talk away. He would tell her about his recent business deal or case he won or his new car at first, and she would smile and nod. He would then move on to his backstabbing business partner, his histrionic secretary, his valkyrie of a sister-in-law while she cocked her head to the side like a dog, letting him know she was listening. He would soon move onto his more serious concerns, his sick mother, his demanding wife. As the night went on his baggage would be unpacked in her apartment. He would tell of his daughter who hates him, or his handicapped son, or his cocaine-addicted brother. His worries for the questionable lump he found on his neck, or the muscle twitches, or his unpredictable bladder. By the end of the night he would most likely by crying as she sympathetically slides a box of tissues across the coffee table. He would leave with an incredible weight lifted that Marianne would now be carrying. However, he would always leave something for her trouble by this stage realising the squalor in which she lived.
What she got depended on what the man had on him and would calibre of man she had preyed on that night. Previous acquisitions included: A gold watch, a wedding ring, a car (which would promptly die and be sold for parts), valium (claiming he would no longer need it), a good news bible, tobacco and rolling papers, a book token, a bar of lindt chocolate (half melted) and a picture of a man by a lake at his holiday home in France (To remember him by). Marianne needed no help in remembering these men, If anything she needed help to forget them. They may have lessened their problems by talking about them but Marianne was more empathic than she gave herself credit for and thought of every one of the two-hundred or so men with whom she had shared an evening. Her escape came in the unlikely form of reality television.
Late one night after one of the men left she began sobbing uncontrollably. She hated what she did, where she lived, her job, her life and her mind was weighed down with the problems of an army of men. She turned on the T.V and flicked through the channels. One that caught her eye was a man swimming through a mucky bog wearing only a pair of shorts apparently to reach his dinner of grub and snails. For just a second she forgot about everything as she saw someone demeaning themselves for the right to eat insects. And the next night there was a man dressed in drag trying to convince men he was woman for a cash prize. And the night after that a woman challenged to live in a bus stop toilet for a month. And so her addiction grew. Seeing the things people did in these shows, creating new forms of humiliation with not a hint of shame. These people humiliated themselves nightly, each night in a different show in a different way on a different channel, but the effect was the same. These people hardly had problems to outweigh her own, but they had a numbing effect on her that compelled her to watch. Even as the men would be unloading their problems on her she would have the tape recording whatever new form of televisual defecation was being aired.
After each man left she would turn on the T.V and rewind the tape. The valium she was left never worked properly, and she got no use out of the rolling papers. She didn't drink alcohol, She never drank coffee and she touched no mind-altering substances in solid, liquid or gas form, But it would be impossible to deny her addictive personality if you watch the smile come across her face as she presses play.

3C

Vacant

4C

Howard Kelly likes to keep to himself. He says nothing to the other tenants in the building but the obligatory hello in the morning if he should happen to cross their path. He is balding man of 58, dirty grey hair combed tight to the sides of his head, capped with a shiny dome of skin. His flesh was cracked and blotchy and his arms flabby. Since leaving his home at 17 he had lived here, alone. He didn't socialise much at all, although he was very found of the internet, running up an intimidating bill on it monthly. He would search out information on everything from ancient Rome to the history of classical music. He would scour the web for the what was new in the field of geology, inform himself of Babylonian history, or the works of Van Gogh. Then he discovered the identity concealing aspect of the internet, which he used much enjoyment.
First he would go into chat room and be himself. Much to his chagrin, no one seemed to be very interested in conversing with him. That's when he decided that rather than change the people he talked too he would change himself. And so it started, small lies at first. Same person, different job, maybe married, possibly children. He would spin stories for these people to keep them interested. He met his wife while he was handling a hostage situation in a supermarket, or when he cured her seemingly terminal illness. His children are 5, or 10, or 20. One day he has twins, two girls, Janet and Sarah. Just finished primary school. One is a piano prodigy, or a gifted swimmer, or already showing artistic promise. He tells people of his pride for his children. Another day it's a son and he's recently got engaged. 22 seems young now, he would say, but I suppose people used to get married at 13. He's just finished at college, too. Soon he'll be living in a nice house when that law firm give him the job he was promised.
After creating these fictional family members he moved on to fictionalising himself. He was 40, then 30, then 25. He was always athletic and strong and brave. He ran his own restaurant, or he worked with the peace corp., or he was a renowned surgeon. The rush he would get from having people interested in him made him feel so alive, and he got great enjoyment from having to weave these stories on the spot. Every night he was the star in the show he drafted himself, then every morning as he would go to get the paper he had returned back into obscurity.
One night while watching the news it reported that the lottery winner wished to remain anonymous. He went straight for the computer and into the chat room, becoming the most popular guy there. He got ten contacts in an hour. He decided he would spend the money wisely, save a bit, maybe start a charity. Five more contacts. He might actually follow the cliché and buy and island. Fifteen contacts. The next night he was the policeman who was awarded the medal for bravery after saving a 5 year old girl from a gunfight in the city. He didn't really want all the attention, he said., he's just happy little Laura Sayers is okay and made it home alright. He soon gave up this method after being rumbled a few times by people who personally knew who he was emulating.
He spun webs so intricate he needed a notebook to keep track of all his personas. If you open this book you will see the notes he has made. Page one:

Luke Macintosh>28>Single>Sound Technician
Likes: Music (Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy), Michael Moore books, Cooking
Hates: George Bush, Power Walkers, Cats
Other: Celiac sufferer
Humour sense: Irreverent

Michael Spector>19>Girlfriend>Arts Student
Likes: T.V (Six Feet Under, Weeds), Chuck Palahniuk books, esp. 'Fight Club'�, driving
Hates: Snobs, weasels (anecdote at back of book), smokers
Other: Sister drowned (12 years old)
Humour Sense: Black Humour

The characters contained in this book got more complicated and strange the further you read, for instance Lila Stewart, the young Mormon wife who's husband ran off with her mother, or Dan Cartwright who suffers from Tourettes but has managed to make a name for himself in the sporting goods area.
On one occasion, after building up a friendship with a nineteen year old girl, she suggested meeting up. This worried Howard as he would be a completely different person in her eyes, but nonetheless he decided to go along with it. He was hoping she would see past his body, forgetting that he had completely fabricated his personality too. What happened almost got him incarcerated. It turned out that he wasn't the only one who lied about himself online. When a fourteen year old girl answered the door he asked if her sister Tanya was in. His answer was a scream. She immediately slammed the door and, acutely aware of the danger, he ran home. He was soon visited by two policemen who took him in for questioning and confiscated his computer.
They couldn't stick him with a charge so he was let go due to lack of evidence for malicious intent and returned to his apartment shaking. He headed straight for the computer to calm him down. You'll never guess what sicko we had down the station today, he typed. This guy was trying to lure a fourteen year old girl'�

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