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Loud shuffling noises were heard from outside Ellen Seedy’s window, which didn’t usually happen, at least to her recollection. She paused the episode of Super Gorilla Quest she was watching at the moment (season 43 episode 17, Gorilla and co have to stop the Shareholder from building the puppy destroyer machine) and looked out her window. This took longer than it should’ve, since her Venetian blinds were definitely broken and took more effort than was reasonable to move. She probably should get those fixed soon.
Ellen was a normal woman, to a pretty normal degree. Not much was terribly interesting to her, but she wasn’t so bland that it became interesting. She existed in the sort of twilight zone between noticeably boring and boringly noticeable where she was just slightly forgettable. Pretty nice person, though. She probably had some interesting facts about her appearance, history, personality, interests, and all that jazz, but damned if I can remember them. She did have blonde hair though, which I should probably mention so you can picture her mentally. Uh, unless you have aphantasia.
After a brief scuffle with her blinds, she got the window usable again and gazed out of it at her neighbor Cosma’s house. It was a little hard to see outside, considering the late hour she was awake (she also had a touch of insomnia, but not to a degree where it was interesting), but she could just see a dark shape moving around in the adjacent residence. She recalled Cosma’s intense sleeplessness she had complained about before, and, feeling a pang of sympathy for the poor gal, stepped outside into the frigid night air to see if she was doing alright.
Making the quick stroll over to Cosma’s house, Ellen began to regret not bringing a jacket. She perambulated over to Cosma’s front door and knocked on it, rattling a “no solicitors” sign hanging on the front. After a few seconds, the doorknob twisted and Cosma appeared in front of her neighbor. “What?” Cosma delivered flatly.
Ellen waved and greeted her warmly with a “Hello! I heard some movement going on over here and just wanted to see if I could do anything to help you. I know insomnia can be a real jerk to deal with!” Cosma groaned in response to this and put one hand on her face in an exasperated gesture. She was not looking great, even compared to her standard unkempt stylings. “So… is there nothing you need?” Ellen asked again with more optimism in her voice than was fitting.
“No… please leave, and don’t try to talk to me again soon.” Cosma slammed the door in Ellen’s face in a pretty rude way, although there’s not many ways to make that not seem rude. Ellen (very cold) jogged back over to her house as fast as possible so as not to contract some sort of horrific hypothermia-frostbite combination, and made it in just before she felt like she would die. She settled back on her couch under a warm blanket and thought a little about how clearly screwed up Cosma was looking. That could not be a good sign towards her mental state. She did a little thinking and decided that the clear best course of action here would be to take Cosma out to a meal sometime that week, which would serve the manifold goals of a) getting Cosma out of the house briefly (something she was not privy to doing on the regular), b) having Cosma eat something other than junk food (something she was not privy to doing on the regular), and c) maybe getting Cosma to divulge a little of whatever the hell is getting her so down at the moment (ibid). Ellen’s uninteresting nature failed to have her consider the possibility of Cosma telling her to piss off (specifically since Ellen would never decline the opportunity to have a bland meal and a few light drinks out with a friend she barely knew), so in her head the plan sounded like it would work perfectly. This is why critical thinking is important.