Nobody (200 pages) is made up of ten short stories, each of which is followed by a hoax email. There is then a short author’s epilogue.

In the first story, ‘Neighbours’, the narrator hates noise. It has always depressed him, and he wonders whether there is an apartment in the whole world that does not have noisy neighbours. He lives in an apartment B, so has neighbours on either side of him. In apartment A, there is a computer technician who has set up his own business and a wife who plays with the children. They like to have the television on all afternoon. In apartment C, there lives a young couple that likes to make love at night, banging the bedhead against the wall. But the neighbour who really gets on the narrator’s nerves is the woman who lives upstairs. She is always shouting at her two children. In the end, he goes up to complain. She apologizes and says she didn’t realize it was a problem, it won’t happen again, but the narrator has to complain so often that she ends up giving him her phone number so he won’t have to climb the stairs. The narrator, however, misses his visits – he has taken a liking to the woman, who is divorced. They start a relationship and, three months later, the narrator moves in with her. A month after that, the new tenant downstairs comes up to complain about the children. In the hoax email, we learn that missed calls to mobiles will now be charged at 55 euro cents a call.

In the second story, ‘Old Man and Old Woman’, an old man lives on his own on the ninth floor of a half-empty building. It’s an isolated area where there is never the sound of children, just old people growing old. The old man never goes out. He has the television on all the time, but never watches it, he just likes to know there are other voices in the world apart from his own. He is so bored that he takes a knife from the kitchen and cuts a finger of his hand from the nail to the wrist every morning. He alternates his fingers so that the cuts on the other fingers have time to heal. This is his way of keeping a hold on time. One day, however, he notices an old woman on a balcony of the building opposite. She sits in a chair and knits. She is always there, when he goes to bed at night and when he gets up in the morning, and the old man begins to feel tenderness for her. He even forgets to cut his fingers. He takes to sitting on his own balcony during the day and watching her. In the evenings, he accompanies her movements on a mouth organ. The material that the old woman is knitting grows so big that it begins to envelop her. The old woman disappears inside the material, so the old man goes over to her building, climbs to the ninth floor and cuts open the cloth only to find that the old woman has disappeared and the shrivelled, foetal body of a bloodstained creature has taken her place, which is how you were born. The hoax email warns against a new virus and gives information on how to delete it from your computer.

In the third story, ‘Lifestyle’, Sara lives in an apartment building and cannot understand why residents’ meetings to discuss matters to do with the upkeep of the building have to last so long. Some people seem to have nothing better to do, but she has to get up to go to work in the morning. She is also annoyed that it is always men at these meetings, and very few women attend. Some people don’t pay their monthly maintenance fees; another neighbour has a dog that barks at night, but he refuses to do anything about it. The neighbours on the first floor have started to use the light well of the building as if it was their own private property, setting up chairs and installing a television, which is on from spring to autumn. Thus everybody in the building knows about their affairs. Sara has had enough of the noise in her building and of the noise in the city. She is also tired of running around. She remembers what it was like spending time in the village as a child and decides to move out into the countryside. She finds a distant, solitary house on a cliff thirty miles from the city. She buys a mountain bike and goes for long rides. She enjoys the silence and lack of access to the Internet. But it turns out that on summer weekends lots of people come to visit the area, bringing their noise with them; in winter, she has nothing to do because of the bad weather and has to stay inside. She decides to rent a house that is closer in to the city, where there are still fields, but also other people. And yet she is struck by how everybody keeps to themselves, there are no children in the streets. She misses a little bit of urban noise. She is afraid that burglars will come in the night. She can’t stand the barking of stray dogs, which remind her of the neighbour in her apartment building. She is bothered by the sound of machinery, of radios, of the local church, which broadcasts Mass on a Sunday via loudspeakers. She is disappointed that there isn’t more of a community feel to the village. This isn’t how she remembers village life from her childhood. So she buys a semi-detached in a housing development that is again closer in to the city, but she has problems with the neighbours, she has to use the car if she ever wants to go out, so she sells the house at a loss and places an advertisement for an attic with a terrace garden in the city centre. The hoax email says that Nokia will give a new phone to everyone who forwards this message to another eight people.

In the fourth story, ‘Literary Community’, Writer finishes a book and places it on a lectern at the entrance to the building. The other inhabitants of the building praise his work, including a woman on the third floor who is called Reader. Critic phones him up, but adds just a couple of comments regarding the structure and style of the book. Writer is annoyed. He thinks it’s because at the last residents’ meeting he refused to let Critic cover the light well in uralite, Critic has remembered this and will attack him now by means of his book, so he decides to ring him up. Critic is disappointed to receive his call. He has endeavoured to give a fair and balanced criticism of the book, in which he has many positive things to say, but Writer just won’t accept any criticism, he always wants to be right, as at the residents’ meetings. Meanwhile, Reader on the third floor is grateful to them both – to Writer for his creative work, and to Critic for his useful suggestions as to what she should read. In the hoax email, we learn how to fraudulently obtain the password of other Hotmail accounts.

In the fifth story, ‘Holidays’, S. Lonely is driving his car. He has almost run out of petrol. Outside, despite the fact it’s August, the temperature has gone down and the sky has turned black. A lorry zooms past, honking its horn. A man is halfway through his holidays and is bored of downloading films, of accessing the Internet, of imitating men and women in chat rooms. He is jealous of his neighbours, who go to the beach, eat ice creams and seem to have a fun time, even though he doesn’t have much interest in these things. S. Lonely continues to drive. He is almost out of petrol and the battery of his mobile phone has almost run out, but he thinks about phoning the hotel to ask for help. He’s not sure what else he can do. The man who is bored at home decides to set out on a trip. He needs to buy a suitcase, make sure the car is all right, get a GPS system, let his sister know he will be out of town. S. Lonely is afraid – he doesn’t have enough petrol in the tank to get back to the hotel, which is still eighty miles away. The man at home goes down to the garage, takes the protective cover off his car (he also has a shiny motorbike), puts the three suitcases he has packed into the car and installs the GPS system. Even so, he has the funny feeling he has forgotten something. S. Lonely is terribly worried that he is still far from the hotel and wonders whether he should ever have set out on this journey. He thinks about phoning his sister and asking for help, but his mobile doesn’t have coverage. The man stops at a petrol station, but when it comes to paying the bill, he finds out that his debit cards are not working, so he has to walk a mile to the nearest bank and take out some money. He realizes it was cash he had forgotten. He arrives at the hotel and pays his bill in advance, even though the hotel staff insist it is more usual to pay when checking out. S. Lonely is still worried and thinking about calling his sister, not that she can help very much, just for some company. The man wakes up the next morning, gets stuck in the hotel lift for fifteen minutes, then decides to go for a drive in the mountains. He enjoys the scenery, but is reluctant to get out of the car. He tries to find a cashpoint, but none of them works and he still hasn’t had any lunch. He decides to stop at a petrol station to fill up, but is told he can’t pay with his debit card because the system has crashed. Eventually, the petrol runs out and the car slowly draws to a halt. The mobile has coverage again. S. Lonely sees it is his sister calling, but pushes the phone away from him. The radio, which has stopped working as well, starts working again and plays a beautiful melody. S. Lonely bursts into tears. In the hoax email, we learn that the traffic police have a system that can make your mobile ring while you are driving. If you answer the phone, they will fine you and dock points from your licence.

In the sixth story, ‘Nobody’, a man is very happy with his new apartment. He cannot stand the sound of human voices, but the building is quiet. He doesn’t mind the noise of water in the pipes or light switches being turned on – that noise is acceptable. The first few weeks, he comes across the odd neighbour, but all they do is smile politely, they never invade his personal space. One day, a damp stain appears on the ceiling of his bedroom, then drops of water form there. He goes upstairs to consult the neighbours, but nobody is at home. He tries for a week, but still there is no answer, so he visits the next-door neighbours only to find there is nobody there either. He stays home from work and knocks at all the doors in the building, but nobody answers. He longs to hear a human voice. When he returns to his apartment, he receives an SMS that says ‘Nobody’ and finds his front-door key won’t fit the lock. In the end, he abandons the building. In the hoax email, we learn that if you reply to an SMS, instead of sending a new one, and the recipient has an account with a different telephone company, you will pay four times the rate.

In the seventh story, ‘The Social Welfare Building’, a writer is at the end of his tether. He has to prepare a conference, but his laptop is not working. He goes downstairs to drink a coffee. Meanwhile, Manuela, a widow, receives a letter from the authorities saying that she is due only thirty euros’ compensation after the death of her husband. This is on top of a pension that is less than four hundred euros per month. In another apartment, a man is determined to stop his wife working so she will look after the house. All the money she earns goes on the nursery for the children. In another apartment, Suleyman takes in an illegal immigrant. There are already eight of them living in the apartment and they must be very careful not to arouse suspicion or distrust among the other occupants of the building. Rafael is divorced and has to pay upkeep to his former wife. He is unhappy living in the building. An old woman lives with her daughter’s family. She has left the village because she cannot manage anymore and is afraid they will put her in an old people’s home. Luz has endured fifteen years of a marriage in which she was mistreated by her husband. She had to give up her work and felt terribly undervalued. Now she has managed to escape, she experiences fear every time she goes outside. Eduardo is 54. He worked all his life in a factory that made spare auto parts, but now he is unemployed and cannot find another job because of his age. An old woman decided her apartment was too big for her on her own, so she rented out a room to another old woman, who died during the night. Now she is on her own again. A Roma family lives on the fifth floor. Everybody in the building distrusts them. They have no opportunities for work. In the attic, a father has installed a television in his children’s room so he can have a bit of peace and quiet. He complains about the local state school. Now he and his wife have decided to send their children to a private school, but there are still complaints about their behaviour. In the hoax email, a client is informed that their bank account has been suspended owing to suspicious activity.

In the eight story, ‘The Fish Dies by Its Mouth’, after eating hamburgers and then being vegetarian for a time, a man has decided to eat only fish. He has become fascinated by them. He even has a fish in a bowl on the living-room table. The trouble is he has to throw them away every so often, otherwise the fish will go rotten. He contacted the Institute of Marine Research to find out how he could preserve them and came into contact with Isabel, who explained to him about polyphenols, flavanols and other strange things, but when he gave away the reason for his interest in preserving fish – so that he could adorn his living-room table with them – she said, ‘The fish dies by its mouth,’ meaning it’s better to keep your mouth shut about certain things, and didn’t want to talk to him anymore. In the hoax email, a Japanese scientist warns of the dangers of dioxins.

In the ninth story, ‘Waiting’, a woman waits for a man she has met on the Internet. She is aware that she has told him one or two lies: she didn’t say she smoked; she is not an air stewardess for Iberia. She doesn’t know much about him, so scrutinizes every man that comes into the cafeteria where she is waiting. After four hours of waiting, of drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, she decides enough is enough, he’s not coming, there’s nothing doing. In the hoax email, a child is suffering from myocardial deformation and needs a heart transplant. For every time an email is sent on this subject, various ISPs will donate 1 cent to the cost of the child’s operation.

In the tenth and last story, ‘Mailing List’, a writer has to write a short story. His deadline is today. He is on the mailing list of a group called ‘Other Left’, which has been attacked by another left-wing group. The members of the mailing list wonder what action to take. The writer has received a hoax email about boycotting two oil companies in an attempt to force the oil companies to lower the price of petrol. He also studies a hoax email claiming that a particular yoghurt product is not as effective as it says it is in protecting the body. Meanwhile, the debate among the members of ‘Other Left’ continues over what action to take as a result of the smear campaign being waged against them. The writer enjoys himself writing horoscopes with humour and sensitivity. He continues to receive emails from ‘Other Left’, the members of which think there must be a traitor among them that has filtered information about the organization to the press. Meanwhile, the writer continues searching for information about hoax emails. He is curious about the way they can be fictionalized in literature. The debate about having an open list, which anyone can join, and the need or not to expel members from that list continues. The writer receives a message from Google Groups informing him that he has been removed from the mailing list ‘Other Left’. In the end, the writer himself sits down to compose a hoax, which is a form of literature. The hoax email warns of the danger of Google Groups becoming infiltrated. There is then a short author’s epilogue.

This book of ten stories sets out to examine the changing relationships among neighbours in an urban environment. These relationships can be difficult, plagued by distrust or hatred; they can also be essential, and the lack of them can lead to fear or abandonment. The stories are a thoughtful and extremely well-written reflection on our attitudes towards others, towards the people we coincide with briefly on the stairs, but whose lives are inextricably linked to our own. The book also examines the power of technology, of virtual relationships, in our lives, which can also be faceless. The information that conditions our relationships is provided anonymously and quickly. Nobody is an important reflection on the lives we lead in a modern, technology-based society, where there are more of us, we live closer together, and yet we end up seeing less of each other.

Synopsis © Jonathan Dunne