the widow

Since I have nicknamed her "The Widow", the stairwell leading from the apartment of this sour-faced woman to that of my friend Suzanne, naturally enough, has become known as "The Widow's Stairwell" - especially when she ascends the steps to complain about the noise, usually declaring that living below Suzanne is the most wince-making of inconveniences she has ever suffered through.
Whether or not The Widow has actually suffered such bereavement as her nickname implies, I am not sure, but she certainly maintains a heaviness of soul and blackness of dress reasonably to be associated with some sort of great loss or other. A reserved, chilly woman, cloaked with an aura of restless nights and dripping taps, silently gliding through the chalky fluorescent corridors of the converted warehouse she calls home, The Widow seems out of place set amongst the unconventional - often bizarre - artists with irregular habits who also live in the loft spaces. Dressed in simple, unaffected and unprepossessing black, she appears almost a figure from another age; perhaps, even, the phantom spirit of some prim secretary once employed by the Victorian business that occupied the building in years long past, doomed to wander the halls forever, wringing her hands over examples of poor craftsmanship and the prospect of impending bankruptcy.