Pun-pun-pun. I tightened my fist and pounded on the door to my brother’s house then pressed my ear against it. No response. Not a single sound from the inside. Could he be sleeping? Doubt it. He usually wakes up before I do. I stepped back and glanced around at my surroundings. Not a single soul in sight. Well then. I clenched my fist once more. Pun-pun-pun. Pun-pun-pun.
Here in Euphonia, it’s very rude to knock on doors. It’s insulting to the property and implies coarseness. There is no need for knocking anyway: every building in Euphonia has at least one doorbell. Some households go the extra mile to add doorbells to every single door in the house, save refrigerators and closets. By default, the bells produce the traditional ding-dong; but trendier individuals prefer a personal touch on the alerts. Admittedly, there isn’t all that much personalization to them; some bored guys recently ran around pressing doorbells and a couple days later reported that over two-thirds of the custom ring-tones are nothing more than simplified versions of melodies to recent pop songs.
Pun-pun-pun. “Sin, are you even home?”
Sin’s not really my brother. We’re just friends. A lot of people say (and assume from first glance) we look like brothers. But then again, people say a lot of stupid stuff. Me and Sin don’t look alike. I’m a little over five-foot-ten; he’s an inch or two shorter. My closely-trimmed hair is a natural shade of dark brown. His black hair — or ebony, as he insists — sometimes go down to his shoulders, at which point he ties up into a ponytail. Other times it’s just a tad bit longer than mine.
A few months ago he got tired of dealing with it and sprayed his hair dark brown.
“G’morning, brother,” he greeted me when I saw him the morning after. I raised an eyebrow, then chuckled. We referred to each other as brothers ever since. The people that we denied our “brotherhood” to before seem to have forgotten that we weren’t brothers.
Sin hates hearing the sound of the doorbell. Hence my socially denounced action of knocking. He left his doorbell intact only because I promised that I would never press it. It’s a bit of added convenience too; he knows that it’s me from the knock.
Every now and then I hint at him a bit, you know, a friendly — excuse me, brotherly — reminder that the success of our Complex, in addition to the entire city of Euphonia, is attributed to SanyoCorp.
SanyoCorp is what really holds Euphonia together. The linchpin. The glue. The backbone. You get the idea. Euphonia has no corporate tax of any sort only because SanyoCorp voluntarily donates a considerable portion of its profits to the city. No one knows or cares the exact amount or percentage; all that matters is that it keeps the streets clean, road paved, lights lit, and other taxes low. SanyoCorp has quite a number of representatives in the city government as well, but that’s another issue altogether.
I turned to leave only to see Sin treading up the stairs in his usual slow pace. In his hands were a bundle of dry bath towels, fresh from the laundromat.