By: Prin Sairungsri

The house had forty-two boys that term. They were loud in the afternoon and quiet at night. Study hall at seven. Lights out at eleven. The proctor walked with a flashlight and checked the knobs of the doors, listening for noise. The seventh step always gave him away.

He knew that step well. The seventh from the landing. It spoke on cold and damp nights. He did not step on it. Never. He lived on the third floor in a room that faced the parking lot. At night, the light from the lot made a white square on his wall. Cars came late sometimes. Lights flashed across the ceiling and went away. He watched them when he could not sleep. The square on the wall did not change. Never.

He kept his shoes in a straight line under the bed. He kept his pencils sharp and short. He wrote the dates in the top right corner of his notes and he did not circle them. He drew a box around them. He liked the straight edges of a box.

The radiator in his room knocked in the morning. Always. It knocked three times, rested, then knocked again. He liked things that returned.

He sat in calculus, second row, nearest to the door. Always. He did not show work he did not need to. The teacher said he was neat. He said thank you and closed the book when the bell rang.

He did his laundry on Sundays. Always. He liked the heat from the dryers and the smell of clean cotton. He watched the red numbers slide down on the timer. He liked even numbers. He did not start a dryer at twenty-nine.

He ate alone and with others. It did not matter. The food was the same. The soup was thin. The bread was cut on a slant. The knives on the tray were scratched and heavy. He liked the weight of them.

He did not talk much. People did not notice. They said hello and he said hello and that was enough talk. When a boy dropped papers on the stairs, he picked them up. When a door stuck he put his shoulder into it and the door opened. The housefather said he was a good kid.

He kept a notebook in the drawer of his desk. It was small and black. He wrote times in it. Some words. Mostly times. “12:05 — noise.”

The first attempt at quieting came in early winter when the heat had just started to run steady. He woke before his alarm and lay still, listening. The radiator knocked three times, and then knocked two; a thin line of sound in his head grew. It was a wire pulled tight. He watched the square of light on the wall slacken. The wire strained.

He sat up and swung his feet to the floor. He put on his shoes and tied the laces. He put on his coat and stood and listened at the door. The hall was quiet. Someone coughed. A toilet flushed. The wire twisted.

He opened the door and stepped over the seventh step. He went down to the ground floor and stood at the entry and watched the night outside. The snow had started before midnight and lay clean on the steps. There would be no tracks.

He walked down the hall to the back staircase. It was narrow and had a window looking out over the landing. The glass held cold in it. He stood with his hands in his pockets and counted. He counted to ten and then stopped and started over. The wire did not slacken. A door opened and closed above him. He stood still.

A lanky boy came down with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. His hood drawn over his head. He used the back stairs when he went out to smoke. He had long legs and took the steps two at a time. The steps spoke under him. The seventh spoke twice.

“Hey,” the lanky boy said, seeing him. His breath showed in the cold air of the stairwell.

“Hey,” he said.

“You going out?” the lanky boy asked.

“No,” he said.

He watched the lanky boy descend the last six steps and push the bar on the back door. The alarm was off at night. He let the door close slowly behind him so as not to wake anyone. The wire was bright.

He stalked the lanky boy outside and stood in the strip of snow between the ramp and the dumpsters. The lanky boy stood with his face turned away from the wind, his hands cupping a lighter—the flame trembling. His cheeks went in as he drew on the cigarette. He did not look up.

“It’s late,” he said.

“Yeah,” the lanky boy answered. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“It’s cold,” he said.

The lanky boy nodded, small and automatic. He let the smoke out slow.

He reached for the lanky boy’s wrist with the lighter and twisted it hard. The lighter fell and died in the snow. With his free hand he brought the lanky boy’s head into the rim of the dumpster—one clean hit. The lanky boy sagged. He covered the boy’s mouth and nose and waited. The chest lifted, failed, and went still. The wire eased. Quiet came.

He locked onto the lanky boy’s lifeless eyes just to make sure, his breath steady. He felt the heat come back into his fingertips. He picked up the lighter and put it in his pocket. He was not a litterer.

He looked at the snow. It was thin and clean and there were marks in it now. He stood and let the flakes fill them. He waited. They filled.

He went back up the stairs and stepped over the seventh and went to his room. He took off his coat and put it over the back of the chair. He washed his hands and dried them on the towel that hung on the radiator. He put the towel back. He took the notebook from the drawer and wrote “1:20 — noise stopped”. He put the notebook back, and closed the drawer.

He slept deep and without pictures. In the morning the alarm rang and he turned it off and lay and listened to the radiator knock three times, rest and then knock three times again. He liked that. He sat up and tied his shoes and went to breakfast.

They found the boy by the dumpsters when the snow let up. The dean stood with the housefather and the proctor and the nurse. The campus police came. The real police arrived after. They put tape around the back door. The tape moved in the wind. The boys stood by the windows and watched. Their breath made fog on the glass and they wrote in it with their fingers. He stood and watched like the others. He did not write in the fog.

In chapel they said the boy’s name and asked for silence. The headmaster said he was bright and kind. The friends of the boy cried and held each other. He stood with his hands at his sides and looked at the wooden cross. It was smooth. He liked the clean joint at the center where the boards met.

The police asked questions. Where were you? Who did you see? Did you hear anything? He said his room number and his name and that he had slept. The officer wrote it down and said thank you. The officer’s pen left a groove in the paper. He watched the groove.

The days went on. Classes met. Snow thawed and froze again. The tape came down and the back door opened like before. He took his laundry down on Wednesday and fed quarters into the machine. He leaned on the warm lid. He did not think of the boy. He thought of the red numbers on the timer and how they dropped one by one.

He did not write in the notebook for twenty-one days. The wire in his head stayed slack. He sat in the library and did his work. He went to practice and ran until his lungs burned and then walked. He helped a freshman find a missing book. He held the door for a teacher with a stack of exams. He slept deep.

On the twenty-second day the wind shifted. It came from the river and moved through the old windows and under the doors. The radiator knocked and kept knocking. It had never done that. The wire drew tight again and hummed. He watched the square of light on the wall. It looked out of place.

He went to study hall and wrote out three problems and did not make a mistake. He liked that. He went back to his room and sat. He waited for the knock to stop. It did not stop. He put on his coat and went out.

He knew the practice rooms were open on Thursdays until nine. You could hear scales through the doors and sometimes a full piece, but mostly scales. It did not bother him when they were clean. It bothered him when they faltered. He stood in the corridor and listened. The scales went up and down. The wire sat quiet for that. Then a new sound came from the end room. It was a song he did not know. It broke and started over. It broke again.

He walked down and stood near the door. He put his hand on the cool metal and felt the music through it. He looked through the small window and saw a boy with a violin. The bow shook. The boy took it back and started again. He lost the note. He smiled at himself and tried again.

He opened the door… The hinge screeched. The boy stopped and lowered the bow.

“Practice hour,” the boy said. “You can sign up after me.”

“I know,” he said.

“You need the room?” the boy said.

“No,” he said. He drew the door back until it caught on the latch, not shut.

“Do you play?” the boy said.

He slid it open again and stepped back inside.

“No,” he said.

The boy nodded and lifted the bow. He drew it across the strings and the note came sweet and then went false. The boy winced. He adjusted his fingers. He drew it again.

“Again,” he said.

“Yeah,” the boy said and smiled. “Again.”

The room was small. The walls were padded with gray squares. There was a chair, a music stand, and a metronome. He looked at the metronome. It ticked and the arm swung and the light caught the metal top each time it rose. Tick. Tick. Tick. The wire in his head was almost steady with it.

He stepped close to the boy and took the bow. “Like this,” he said. He pressed it down the boy’s mouth. Hard.The air tasted of iron. It did not take long for the boy’s eyes to fade.

When it was quiet, he let go and stood there and listened to see if the quiet would hold. It held. The wire calmed. He picked up the bow and placed it on the stand. He did not like things to fall. He straightened the metronome and stopped it with his finger. That was better. He opened the door. The hall was empty. In the next room a scale faltered, then stopped. He closed the door and walked back to the dorms, stepped over the seventh step, and went to his room.

He took off his coat and washed his hands and wiped them on the towel and hung the towel on the radiator. He opened the drawer, took out his notebook, wrote the time and closed the drawer. He sat on the bed and looked at the square of light on the wall. It looked right again.

The winter carried on and ended. The boys wore sweatshirts without coats. The track around the lower field was wet and dried and was wet again. The tape on the back door never went up again. The counselors put toffee in bowls and left their doors open. He passed those doors and did not go in.

He did not write in the notebook when he did not need to. He liked the empty pages. It meant there had been quiet.

On a Sunday night in spring there was a fire drill. The alarm strobed and the house groaned and boys came out of rooms and pulled on shoes and ran down the stairs. The seventh step spoke. It spoke many times. He held the rail and let himself be carried. They stood in the lot in their shirts and breathed steam and watched the windows strobe. The head counted them. The head said good and waved them back inside. Boys went up in lines and broke the lines and ran. The seventh step spoke. He did not step on it.

In his room he sat on the bed and looked at his desk. On the desk was a lamp and in the drawer the small black notebook. He did not open the drawer. He lay back and looked at the ceiling. The square of light had moved. It went across slowly. He watched it until it was gone.

Exams came. He wrote the dates and the times. He emptied his drawers and folded his shirts. He stacked his books and tied them with twine. He liked how the twine made a cross on the stack. He took a roll of tape and sealed a box. The tape made a sound when it pulled from the roll. He liked that sound.

On the last night he walked the hall and touched the cool paint on the walls. The rooms were open. Empty beds. Empty desks. He stood at the back stair and put his hand on the window. The glass kept cold even in June. He went down and pushed the bar and stepped into the small square of concrete by the dumpsters. It smelled like grass and cow dung.

He stood there and waited. He did not count. He did not need to. Nothing happened. There was only the hum of the lights and the sound of a train a long way off. He liked the train. It kept its own line and did not come here.

He went back up. He stepped over the seventh step. He went to his room and turned off the lamp and lay down.

He thought of the square of light. He thought of the seventh step. He thought of the radiator knocking and then resting and then knocking again. He thought of the boys going and coming and how the house breathed with them.

He did not think of the notebook or the times written there. He did not need to. He closed his eyes.

In the morning he would take his boxes down and put them in the bus. He would sit by the window and watch the track and the fields and the road out. He would come back in August when the leaves were heavy and the rooms smelled like dust, varnish, and old books. He would set his shoes in a straight line under the bed and put the pencils in the drawer and the small black notebook under them.

He would listen to the radiator. He would listen to the step. He would wait. The quiet would hold. It always did. Until it did not.

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Prin Sairungsri is a seventeen-year-old Thai writer from Bangkok and a senior at Mercersburg Academy. His work has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Blue Marble Review, Voices of Affinity, and the Excellence 2025 Student Poetry Collection.