Chapter 1 - The Apartment I first saw the apartment complex from the Internet. It looked simple, and "homey", not the typical modern, cold looking high-rise. A beautiful 3 stories pre-war building with a small courtyard in the middle. I went there to check it out with my mother. She had to know where I would live away from her. It's only natural for a mother to know these things, she said. The apartment building had a small buzzard system, as I stood in front of the main door, trying to reach the management office, two guys approached.       "Hi," said the red head, "Trying to reach the management?"       "Yeah… I knew I should've called before I decided to just popped in, but it's a little bit too late now that we have traveled all the way here."       "That's funny," he said again, smiling, "Cause we're the management!" Behind him, stood a large African American with the one of friendliest smile I've ever seen. He introduced himself as Earl and the red head as Andrew and let us in. As I made my steps down into the courtyard, I fell in love with this apartment building instantly. I am not sure why, but my guess would be the whole feeling that an old building always gave me. The feeling of warmth and welcome as I imagined generations of people who have lived in it. My mother, who was with me at that time, gave me her usual disapproval look, left eyebrow held high as her lips cornered a bit. She is so wonderful in trying to show this in the most discreet and polite way in front of Andrew, it almost made me laugh. At the same time, her disapproval boiled up my sense of rebellion. It is I who would be living in it! I! Me! Mine! She does not have a say on this! The unit shown by Andrew is rather small, he told me that the unit that I am actually going to be living in would be larger but it is now still occupied and the current resident refused to let us in. He showed us the window of that actual unit from the outside, describing which window is which.       "That one on the right will be your kitchen, that one is your bedroom…" I was not listening. Something else caught my mind. It was a subtle sound of wind chimes. Almost inaudible because this summer is one of the hottest summers I've had in the States, not much wind blowing in lately. But the sound caught my ears and almost immediately my mind goes along with it. It sounded so lonely and gave me a sense of longing, for something, I don't know what that something is… Right across the small alley from where "my" windows are located, there was another old building, more beautiful than the apartment we're looking at, really, for there are a couple of units with porches. One of these porches had a small white table surrounded by purple flowers, and a small metallic wind chime at the right corner. I stared at this unit for a long while, Andrew must have noticed it.       "Those are under my management too," he started, "But those are for sale, not rent." He paused for a moment and tried to see where my gaze were fixed, "That one with the purple flowers are actually two stories high, the owner bought the unit right underneath it and redesigned the whole place."       "Oh, wow, sounds like a great place." I said.
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