I once lived in a house called The Willows. One day the next door alarm went off, and didn't stop. After banging on the door and calling the police, I discovered that the person living there was away in western Europe. The alarm kept going and going and going for weeks, and I had to go and stay with my girlfriend's parents becuase it was unendurable. I still had to pay rent. I don't know when the neighbour came back, but one day I went to the house and the alarm had finally stopped. I thought about knocking on the door and staring at the neighbour with eyes that were like ragged tunnels bored into eternally roiling clouds of relentless, hopeless, joyless grey, demanding they return what had been stolen from me, knowing that they never could. So I didn't.