An Apartment Divided

Dori and Dusty sat across the table from each other. Down the table, a long strip of duct tape ran. It curled around, following the same line underneath, down the centre pedestal, and onto the floor. There, it extended to the walls, up them, and around the ceiling.

It was an impressive strip of duct tape – one long strip, going around the whole apartment. The beginning met the end in the centre of the table, overlapping.

The room, and by extension the apartment, was divided.

Now Dori and Dusty sat at a cross-roads. On Dori’s side, her bedroom, the door, and half of the kitchen – the half with the oven and the dishes. On Dusty’s side, her room, the bathroom, and half the kitchen – the half with the refrigerator and the cutlery.

“So,” Dori said, “what do you want for dinner today?”

“I’m easy,” Dusty said. “Do you have any plans?”

“I was thinking maybe Chinese food. Maybe Indian.”

“Hm, I was planning to make…well, I don’t have much left, actually, so probably just the last leg of chicken, and maybe a couple of sticks of celery.”

“That sounds nice. Inexpensive at least, I could use that right about now.”

“Yeah, I bet it’s been hard on the wallet, eating out every day.”

“Yup. What will you do now that you’re finishing the cooked chicken? I know there’s some frozen stuff, but you can’t just eat that. And I’d worry about the drumstick, too, it’s been there for more than a week.”

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll survive.”

“Okay. Well. I guess that’s that. See you later.”

“Have a nice walk.”

“I always do,” Dori stood and walked to the door. “Oh, text me if you want me to pick anything up.”

“I don’t need your charity.”

Dori shrugged and left. Dusty walked to the kitchen, careful not to cross the taped line, and opened the fridge door.

Howl at the Moon

Colin stood on the narrow little porch of his condo – his apartment, really. It was someone else’s condo, that he had rented as an apartment. So an apartment-condo. Or condo-apartment. He never knew quite how to describe it. The tiny little space in which he lived.

The porch was the selling point, raising the price of the place from twelve to fifteen hundred a month. It was five feet wide by four feet deep. Almost a square. It bothered him, sometimes, that it wasn’t a perfect square. He wanted the symmetry, though other days a rectangle was fine. More room to stretch out.

It was a cool night as Colin stood, staring out over the parking lot at the building next door. His neighbour, some eighty-four feet away, was cooking dinner. Those eighty-four feet (and eighteen stories) kept Colin from calling out, or waving, or making any sort of contact. He just watched, unseen on the dark balcony of his dark apartment, as the neighbour put some vegetables in a pan, turned to her partner, lifted a glass of wine.

Colin looked away. The moon was peaking out from behind the neighbour’s building, three quarters full. It gleamed, a silvery-white, the face saddened by shadows. Colin watched it, inch by inch, centimeter by centimeter, climbing it’s way out of the building.

He took a deep breath, considered howling. But he didn’t. His neighbours might complain. They might get him kicked out. They might not look at him anymore, might not smile when he smiled to them as they passed in the hallway. He stayed quiet, watching the moon until it passed out of sight behind his building. Not his building. The building in which he lived.

Money Isn’t Important

Jell-o was not his favourite dessert, a sentiment he shared with the dog. He had tried to sneak the bowl to the mangy pup under the dinner table in the dank, flea-infested apartment, but the canine responded only by barking. He discovered this had been tried before, as his host looked at him with disappointment.

“It was a lovely dinner” he lied to her. The steak was overdone (to the point of being nearly black), and the potatoes were still cold and crunchy inside. The wine was watered down. His fork was still dirty, but he tried to scrub that off with his thumb, though the (what appeared to be) cheese was caked on.

She smiled at him, and immediately lifted her hand to cover her mouth. The missing front tooth was balanced by the crooked others, which overall lead the eyes away from actually noticing either. Her hair was in a bun, and she was wearing too much perfume. “Things have been a bit tight lately, so it’s the best I could do.”

He smiled, and put his napkin (well, paper towel) on the table. “Shall we?” he gestured to the living room, which was slightly better decorated, though still sparse and unkempt.

“Okay,” she smiled again and stood, leaving the plates where they were. He wondered if they had moved at all in the past month.

As they sat on the squishy blue velvet couch, tears started to roll down her cheek. He put an arm around her shoulder, trying to soothe her.

“There there, it’s all right.”

“No, it isn’t. This is terrible, no one should live like this. I can’t afford any better, and can’t seem to figure out how to step up. I want to impress you, but can’t. I don’t have anything. I’m not worth anything.”

“Hey now, dinner was fine, and besides, you don’t need to impress me. I know you’re smart and funny and beautiful. Money isn’t important.”

She laughed bitterly, “It helps though.”

He smiled, and kissed her. As they settled back on the couch, the jell-o left on the table lost cohesion, dissolving to stick red goo that worked its way in to the finish of the table and joined the other stains.