Sometimes he’s there and sometimes he’s not, but somehow I always know when he’s coming; don’t you? That oldest and shittiest of roommates:
AGHFUCK. Bringer of regret.
AGHFUCK. Who half slithered and half crawled from the darkest and stupidest corner of the underworld just so he could stick his tongue inside my landlord’s ear, sign the back of my lease, and move on in with all his fleas and all his sleazy bags of tricks.
I open the door to my apartment, forgetting what I should have been expecting. Mid-breath I see him sitting there, and I crumple.
AGHFUCK. Stomper of dicks.
He’s pulled all the curtains shut and the only light left after it filters through them is caked with grime.
Aghfuck blinks at me, looking kinda dopey for all of 2 seconds before the maliciousness slams in, glinting out from his slug eyes.
He gets to work fast this time.
You know I’ve been really busy slapping that good CBT brand brain putty overtop all my You-Know-Whats. Yeah?: Well. Barely 4 seconds and he’s drilled right through to You-Know-Where. He knows how low I can go and has a plan to get me back there, stat.
Hilarious roommate hijinx prank I.
He staples me to the wall and uses a hook and tweezers to pull my brain out my nose and replace it with a wet towel from the bathroom floor.
Jeez, Aghfuck. Not even a “Hello”?
Not even. He cuts me down and starts to wrap me in gauze. I feel like I should stop him. But my brain is a wet towel. So.
Once I'm rolled up so tight that my senses are warbled shut, he starts dragging me. Somewhere or other, down, -ish.
I blink and blurs slowly take shape.
It’s tomorrow or the next day.
I’m outside or I’m inside and I’m trying to figure out
how to see through
how to feel through these layers of gauze to figure out
where I am and what I’m doing.
I’m lying in my bed thinking about not lying in my bed. I go to reach for my phone on the side table but my arm clangs against metal against metal. Blindingly loud.
Everything’s not where I left it. Nothing makes the right noise when I hit it. The wood is birds. The phone is an onion.
There’s probably a reason they make brains out of brains and not out of musty towels.
I wonder how long until it starts to mold.
Hilarious roommate hijinx prank II.
I get home from a bad day at work and somehow forget that AGHFUCK is going to be sitting on the couch with nothing to do but wait for me. He’s holding my old (non-towel) brain in front of him. Prodding and poking it with his thumbs like an Xbox controller.
He’s not watching the tv though. He’s watching me with dead eyes that prod and poke inside me. I feel sick.
He opens his mouth. Instead of a swarm of scorpions, just: “It’s garbage day today.”
What the Fuck? Didn’t remember. Don’t have the energy.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”
He gets up, carries my brain into the kitchen and kicks it into the garbage pail, then throws an old bowl of noodles on it. Then he just waits. Eyes still fixed on me.
I eventually work up the impulse to shamble over toward my braaaaain. I’m digging through coffee grounds and noodles and yogurt and I think I feel my old brain under there somewhere but—. He hammers out my ankles with an ice pick and I crumple to the floor.
I’m half conscious of him lifting me up by the ankles and shoving me headfirst into the bag of garbage. Smushing me down until there’s enough loose at the top to tie it off. Skishhhht.
There’s a dull thudding or something and then I’m on one of those old freight elevators and it’s winching down screech ka-chung down ka-hack. Slowly. Chakack. Down. Ka-SHAck. screech. My stomach feels the weight of falling. My wet-towel-driven limbs are heavy, sloppy and useless.
The elevator lurches to a halt and I am dragged across the sandpaper pavement. Ooooohhhh blessed be the moulded out slosh that cushions my ass on this journey; but anyway a horrible pain shoots across my neck and head and I’m gone again.
There’s light now. The sun. It’s bright and awful. I’m out on the street I guess. It takes me maybe 15 minutes to figure out if I’m standing or not. I’m not. I’m lying on the sidewalk, spilling out of the ripped open garbage bag. Claw marks on the refuse around me give the distinct impression I’ve been picked over and turned down by the raccoons. I can’t even participate in the world as the bottom of the food chain. Just perfect.
But it gets better. He left me by the garbage can right beside my regular bus stop and tick tock tick if it isn’t bus catchin’ time!
I look at my hand and my wrist and waggle my stupid dead sausage fingers. I am standing now.
The people walking past can’t see the gauze or the staples in my clothes or the hole in my head. I presume. They’d probably… react… if they could. Right?
Hope the boss doesn’t notice I’ve finally literally come apart, either. On the bright side—nobody’s noticed before.
Well. Thanks, AGHFUCK. And also—I’m gonna insist on you giving all my xbox games back.