Afterthought

The door to a house opens to its living room. Barely decorated, it only has a few things within it. There is an old LCD screen pressed up against one side of the wall and a mattress pressed up against the opposite wall along its longer side. The mattress has a clean sheet on it, it is white with pink roses. There are empty takeout boxes stuffed in the brown paper bag they came in next to the mattress, kept in a way that they would be hidden from no one but the person sitting on the mattress. The living room opens to a massive balcony, which is closed for now. The curtains are drawn open, letting all the sunlight from the outside in. It is an uncomfortably warm room, but a nice one. When the trash is in the bin, one could call it liveable. Whether the sparse belongings are a feature or a detriment to the occupant is still unknown.

Next to the living room is an open kitchen, and separating the space shared between the two is a refrigerator. The kitchen has a two-stove setup; both of them are occupied with dirty pots from the morning. However, despite the dirty pots, the rest of the kitchen remains surprisingly mess-free. Both pots within them have dried cooked ramen noodles stuck to the bottom, the bigger one on the right also has evidence of something that is a vegetable, although which one is hard to determine. Two used forks lie in one each. Next to this is a clean sink, with some utensils left next to it to dry. These mostly include massive pots and Tupperware.

Through the open window comes a man dragging two bags of groceries. He leaves them near the door before he closes it. He kicks them so that the contents spill out of them. He takes out the yogurt, milk, frozen peas, butter, tomatoes, ketchup and green olives. He places them all one by one in the fridge, except the olives, which he opens the jar of, to snack on a few before he places them in the fridge themselves.

He goes into the only bedroom in the flat, which has a lone double bed mattress. The bed is not made, and the red sheets are coming off, revealing the dirty mattress below. In the corner is a chair with half dirty clothes, next to a laundry basket with dirty clothes. He takes off the jeans he was wearing and puts them on top of the chair pile, switching them for a pair of pink shorts that were on top of the pile on the chair previously. He then goes to the other side of the room, where there is a small chest of three drawers. He opens the top drawer and takes out a packet of cigarettes. He pockets them and takes off his t-shirt, and throws it behind his back. From the sound it makes, he can tell it touched the basket before it fell on the floor. He goes to the kitchen and lights a cigarette using the stove. After one single hit, he remembers something. Frustrated, he rubs the cigarette out and puts the remaining back in the box. He goes back to the bedroom and starts pulling the chair with the clothes on it. They all fall on top of the shirt he just took off, making a new pile on the floor. He lifts the chair, places it squarely in the middle of the mattress and the TV in the living room and faces it away from the window. He goes to the balcony and brings in a filthy white plastic chair covered in dust and spotted with pigeon shit. He locks the balcony door behind

him. He goes to his room and grabs a shirt from the laundry basket, which he drapes over the plastic chair. Finally, he goes to the clean dishes and from below all the pots takes out a beautiful emerald coloured ceramic ashtray. He makes a round of the house and closes every door that leads into the living room. He sits down on the chair, puts his feet up and places the ashtray on a part of his thigh which is not covered by the shorts. He then gets up, frustrated and goes back to his bedroom. He comes back out with a candle, which he lights using the stove. He places the lit candle on the floor and takes his seat back again. He makes himself comfortable and takes out the cigarette again. He lights it using the candle and simply places it between his lips. He is careful not to breathe through his mouth but only through his nose. He takes out his phone and opens the Home app. Using it, he closes the curtains, which completely stop any outside light and turns on the RGB LEDs he had set up behind the TV, behind the fridge and right above where he was sitting in the chair.

He then finally takes the second drag of his cigarette. He repeats this till he’s done with it, using the ashtray frequently, avoiding spilling even the littlest of ash on the floor. He blows the smoke towards the TV. The smoke appears in the green light coming from behind the TV. Slowly twisting and turning, the smoke refuses to stay in place. Eventually, it has moved too much, dissipated and lost any proof of its previous existence. The man constantly replaces the smoke in the light, eventually filling up the entire room. The room is hot and only grows hotter, sweat dripping from every pore in the man’s body. However, he doesn’t stop smoking. Eventually, he throws his head back in the chair and chooses to rest his eyes. The process continues, and in no time, he is on his 7th cigarette. His eyes are now red from the smoke in the room, and yet every consecutive drag is deeper than the last one. With every passing second, his body relaxes further and grows laxer. His body lags onto the chair, draping over it like a thick blanket. He is about to fall asleep when a set of keys rattle in the main door. The main door opens, giving the smoke the outside to escape.

A woman holding a paper bag and two cups from Starbucks comes into the house. She closes the door behind her. The man keeps smoking without a single beat. She pulls out her phone and changes the light’s colour from green to a bright yellow. She takes out a pink towel from the bag and starts wiping the sweat off the man. She focuses on his face and neck, only casually wiping his chest and legs. Before she starts on the legs, she notices that the cigarette currently in the man’s hand is almost done. The woman takes it, quickly smokes the rest of it and then empties the ashtray in the bin. She wipes the part of the thigh where it was and places it there again. The man lights another cigarette and continues.  By the end of this, the cloth had a massive black line streaked across it.

The man’s eyes are exceptionally bloodshot now. Any tears that come immediately dry up, giving the eyes absolutely no respite. The constant wiping of his eyes by the man doesn’t help either. The woman brings out a small hand fan from her bag and hands it to the man. He fans his face using it. The cool wind from the toy fan makes him sleepy, but he doesn’t fall asleep. The woman finally goes into the bathroom and turns on the tap which begins to fill up a black bucket placed under it. She stands in the doorframe, leaning against it and takes out her vape, taking a single hit before she pockets it. She holds it in for a while and then continues breathing normally, never giving a dedicated exhale to the vapour she had just inhaled. She hears the bucket overflowing and turns off the tap. She whistles to the man, who gets up and stands in front of the bucket. He strips, hangs his clothes up and lifts the whole bucket and dumps it all on himself. The cold water freezes him completely, and he crouches down trying to warm up. His whole body is shivering. The woman drapes a towel around him and waits for him to stop shivering. Once he has, he gets up, wipes himself dry and puts the same shorts back on. Still shirtless, he goes back on the chair and continues with his previous activity. His eyes are now red, and his hair is still damp, although the rest of his body is completely dry.

From the paper bag, she then takes out two massive boxes of strawberries and puts them away in the fridge. She takes one of the Starbucks cups and hands it to him.

“You said you couldn’t find good strawberries anywhere, so I found some for you. They’re in the fridge whenever you want them. Don’t think about leaving any for me, I’ve already got two boxes of my own.”

“Okay.”

“The cup has coffee in it. It’s a latte, which I know you don’t like but your body needs the milk. I also asked them to put in a pump of hazelnut in it. Thought it’d make it more palatable for you.”

The man takes a sip.

“It does.”

“Brilliant. I’ve also got you a green tea. I know you like them cold, so just let it sit for a while.”

She claps her hands and purses her lips.

“So… is there anything else?”

“Could you make the light purple and get me a shirt, please? I couldn’t choose.”

“Yeah, of course”

She takes out her phone while going into his bedroom. The light turns purple as she picks up a khaki-coloured T-shirt from the pile. She brings it out to him.

“Khaki?”

“It will go well with the pink shorts. Trust me.”

He grunts but puts the T-shirt on.

She asks, “What am I supposed to do now?”

The man is on his final cigarette, which is already half done. The empty box in his pocket feels like it should be in the dustbin, but he doesn’t move because where else could his trash be but with himself till he finds a bin.

“You're supposed to leave.” He replies firmly.

She begins to leave.

“Wait, could you throw all these bags out for me?”, he points at the bag next to the living room mattress.

“Sure. Do you want those groceries put away?”

“No. I want them there.”

He picks up the brown paper bag the woman was using, puts in the cigarette box from his pocket into it. Crushes it all and throws it on the pile next to the living room mattress. The woman goes to the pile of trash and picks it up. She opens the balcony which lets it in some light, although it is little as the sun begins to sets. The man closes his eyes to avoid it and throws his head back in his seat. The woman comes back in returning the room to its original dark state. She opens the flat’s door and begins to leave. The man snaps his fingers. She stops and acknowledges it with a short but sharp whistle.

He lifts his head up and with his eyes looking at the floor says, “Thanks.”

The woman gives him a smile that stretches across her face but not to her eyes. She leaves, gently closing the door behind her. Her steps down the stairs become quieter and quieter, eventually disappearing just as the sharp sizzle of the final drag gets to the man. Once she leaves and the cigarette is over, the man goes and lies down on the mattress on his bedroom. Facing the wall, away from the TV he eventually falls asleep. The purple light shuts itself off at 1am. The night grows darker and his snores become louder. He doesn’t wake up a single time except to pee once.

He only does this because asking her to clean his sheets and mattress after peeing on them would be too much to ask.

The End