She walked in the front door and met immediate chaos. The panic-inducing kind. Bottles strewn on the ground, piles of shoes on top of newspapers and keys and even bags of rice. The sheer randomness of the collections astounded her. Really? Really?
The bathroom was no better; actually, it was worse. A bottle of foundation sat innocently at the bottom of the sink while glasses full of half-drunk liquids lined the counter. She sagged onto the toilet seat, the only place clear of stuff. That's it, she thought. Too much stuff, just crap really, all this brick-a-brack. Who needs all of this? She saw her cluttered apartment as a metaphor for capitalism and all of its inherent evils. It didn't respect the facts, which was that the world was one of fragility and endings. Which is the point at which she would realize again why she had such trouble connecting with people. Too much going in on the inside, too much mushing and mashing.
But anyway, the point being, she was tired, having spent her day in the confines of academia. And to her, coming home to a trashed apartment meant that there no space for her, for her emotions, her thoughts. A serious funking of her psyche. BER-LOOB. A lipstick tube rolled into the sink, forcing the foundation to share its space. She sighed, scooted off the toilet, and bent down to retrieve her bag. Where to go, you know? For now, her bed was looking like the best option.
This is a short story I wrote in consideration of some of the difficulties of opening up and sharing a life (and more specifically, a room) with somebody. It's a way to explore how one's room affects one's mood, one's state of being. This is something that I don't think most people consciously think about, but I do believe that it has the potential to make quite the impact. This is almost meant to be a piece of magical realism, wherein inanimate objects can take on personas that have the ability to get under our skin...
amen.
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