Short Fiction: Project Apartment

Cory Driscoll, a lanky man with the posture of a meek but curious giraffe, had lived in the same modest apartment building for five years. His life was a simple one: eat, sleep, work, and volunteer. He was an island in a sea of busy people, but Cory never felt lonely. His neighbors came and went, and he seldom saw them, except for when the mailman came or the fire alarm went off.

Across the street, a new apartment building sprung up like a weed among the city's concrete jungle. It towered over Cory's building, casting a perpetual shadow over his home. Cory noticed that the residents seemed oddly familiar, and he couldn't shake the creeping feeling that they were watching him.

As it turned out, Cory's suspicions were not unfounded. The CIA had bought the apartments next to his and even built the new building across the street, all for the sole purpose of keeping an eye on him. Initially, they had settled for eavesdropping through the walls, but the Agency wanted a better view, and so the monolith had been erected.

The trouble was, the CIA had the wrong guy.

For five long years, they had been spying on an innocent man. The agents could have easily admitted their mistake and moved on, but their pride and fear of reprimand left them scrambling to find something – anything – that would justify their colossal blunder. Cory, unwittingly, even dated a CIA agent for two months, who had been assigned to get closer to him.

The agents scoured Cory's life, desperately seeking a speck of dirt. They found none. Instead, they discovered something unusual: Cory spent all his free time giving back to the community, volunteering at soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and schools.

Eventually, the CIA could stand it no longer. They confronted Cory, demanding to know what secret agenda motivated his altruism. Cory, with a wistful smile, explained that he had no family and that giving back was his only sense of purpose. It filled the void in his life, and the simple act of helping others brought him a happiness that he couldn't find elsewhere.

The CIA agents were dumbfounded, struck by the realization that they had wasted their time pursuing a man whose only crime was kindness. They were left to grapple with their own morality, questioning whether their relentless pursuit of an innocent man – and their willingness to fabricate evidence – was worth the effort.

In the end, it was Cory's simple humanity that shattered their delusions. The agents, humbled and chastened, found themselves inspired by the man they had once hunted. They realized that sometimes, the greatest revelations can come from the most unexpected places – like the heart of a man who only wanted to make the world a better place, one small act of kindness at a time.