This is what I came in here for? To do laundry? I stared at the washing machine, humming its last words as its insides spun around like my stomach. It had no eyes, but somehow I felt it staring at me, contemplating my form. It was uncomfortable. I walked away. There were only a few minutes left in the cycle, but I couldn’t stand to look at it another second. Something about the whole room, basking in its fluorescent glow, unnerved me.
I climbed the stairs sluggishly, the door below me ajar. I would’ve closed it, but I’d plum forgot. And I wanted to be as far from that place as possible. It reminded me of something—something involving a belt and two naked bodies. One, at least for my purposes, didn’t exist anymore. The whole house reeked of regret. I needed to get outside and smoke a cigarette.
The smell of tobacco smothered my ruminations. Thank God. Some pills can be too difficult to swallow. Beating around the bush was my specialty when I didn’t want to beat around myself. When you look in a mirror and the edges start to crack, it’s not you that you’re hurting anymore. My brain felt full of glass, and I could feel it digging into my thoughts like fish bones in an unsuspecting throat.
There were so many things I needed to do that the washing machine couldn’t explain to me. The first order of business, it said, is to empty my insides into another. The dryer. What’s a washer without a dryer? What are chores in a house where no one lives but you? Why’d I pour myself like so much detergent in another’s heart just to watch its blue turn to bubbles and disappear? Holy shit, get over yourself, I thought. Just do the damn laundry.
I mustered up the courage to go back. Once again, I stared at the machine. But suddenly, it was different. We were no longer two bundles of painful memories, we were two machines. I empty you, spread the contents like words onto a letter, just to crumple up and burn it in the big automatic furnace whose lint trap desperately needed emptying. I wondered how to empty my own lint trap. Maybe stop smoking cigarettes. And water. I pressed the button and it was done. I felt empty, but the dryer was full. Well done.
The next item on the agenda was… nothing. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, but I’d been through this routine all day. The pack of Newports from this morning was almost gone. Was I really the pack a day guy already? I guess it was time to slow down. Time to relax. The house was closing in on me, I had to relax. I went upstairs to my bedroom. It used to be our- oh shut up. I had as much patience for my thoughts as an alcoholic father for his children. Slap some duct tape on it and move on. There was no use crying over spilled milk.
I don’t know why, but platitudes had been getting me through the past three months. Day by day, as I struggled to grow without sunlight, I ate up little bits of colloquial wisdom through insufferable cliches and pseudo-inspirational quotes. I felt like a refrigerator whose contents were just more magnets leaking out from inside the door. I could’ve dug around for something good, but when I stared inside too long the light began to boil my glossy, unseeing eyes.
Day after day had been like this. I couldn’t stand it, but I couldn’t see any other way. Change terrified me. The other day, the sound of the mailman slipping credit card statements and ads for insurance through the mail slot in the garage had scared me half to death. I’d been down there staring at the laundry again. I wasn’t agoraphobic or anything, I just wasn’t going outside. I wanted to crawl back in my bed and wake up as a fetus returned to the womb. I wanted to start over. The past was a rope around my throat, time pulling it ever upward. I felt as if my toes were just barely grazing the floor.
And then, a knock.
I wondered if I imagined it. My heart raced as I wondered what now, who would be here at this time of night. My pulse began to thunder in my head as I realized it might be- no. It definitely wasn’t. It was probably a neighbor or something. Maybe, if I stayed quiet, they’d go away. Maybe it was a burglar… no. Burglars don’t knock, what a stupid thing to—
Another knock.
Ok. I’d better go open it, I thought. It could be someone needing help. After all, that’s what a peep hole is for. I tip toed over to the door and stared anxiously outside. At first I couldn’t see, but when I angled down my gaze I saw a familiar face. It was Chiara, from the coffee shop. What the hell was she doing here? Oh shit, I thought, I told her we should go to see that movie tonight, that one sci fi horror one what the hell was it called. I’d told her to come over and we’d make a night of it. But that was last week. I was surprised she even remembered. I had sent her my address though. I guess my shitty sentiment had been that if I didn’t text then it was cancelled. I opened the door.
“Hi. Can I come in?”
Her eyebrows were raised, expectant in that way that says “I’m waiting to get pissed.” I held my hand out toward the hallway and she marched through the doorway to throw her bag down by the coat rack. I shut the door and sighed. I felt like shit.
“You know, you could’ve at least texted and said you didn’t want to hang out if it’s such a hassle.”
I turned around, and she had her hands on her hips. Her eyes had this golden glow around the edges of her irises, and the pupils were wide and black under wide heavy lids. She was pretty, but we could never get along. I think that’s why we were such good coffee friends.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s been a rough week. I haven’t been responding to anyone, it’s not just you. I don’t even have popcorn.”
“I’m not here for movie night dumbass, I’m here to check if you’re ok. You know, sending a text isn’t that hard. Not seeing you every morning is weird, and it scared me. I thought you might be avoiding me but it’s been over a week dude. So now I wanna know what’s going on.”
I looked at her jacket. It was fur, and I had this weird vision of some incensed vegan activist throwing paint on it screaming “Fur is murder!”
I put a log on the fireplace after I hung her coat up. She’d been winding around the room the way she does, with a twist of the neck and the hips that made her whirl and spin through space like a top. Something about her was so mystical to me, like watching a ballet dancer pirouette on the stage of a grand theater. In the embers of the fire the log began to catch flame, and I sat back and almost got lost in my thoughts completely.
“Hey. You gonna come talk to me or what?”
She was reclining lethargically on the couch, and yet she was simultaneously impatient with me. “Hypocrite!” I thought to myself.
“So basically you came over because you miss me.”
“You wish. I just dropped by ‘cause I was in the neighborhood and you don’t know how to answer a text. What’s been eating you up? You can’t just shut yourself up in this house you know…”
I stared at the concern in her eyes. It was kind of pathetic, but it felt nice to know that someone would fret over me even now. I almost forgot what had been eating me.
“Stop worrying about me and focus on your finger painting.” She was an artist, very abstract and experimental.
“Shut the fuck up you clown. For your information, yours truly actually just got first place at the new visual arts exhibit that opened downtown. I even talked to the curator and they said they wanted to get me to collaborate on a project for the city. Your girl’s movin’ up in the world.”
“Ah of course, your network is your net worth! Now you can collab on more pussy sculptures and discuss the symbolism of a bowl of pubes.”
“You’re really insufferable, you know that?”
“I’m sorry, you know I’m only kidding.”
I sat down on the couch, leaving room for a good couple feet of air between us. My cat, Eggman, jumped on the couch and curled up in the gap. And it was cool. I looked at her, and she talked to me minute after minute until half an hour rolled by and the fire began to dwindle, and in those drowsy hours I lost any sense of what she was saying. But she knew that. I looked briefly at the way her bare legs glistened in the firelight. They were smooth as silk and ethereally pale, like glowing marble statues in the moonlight. I remembered the day I met her in the coffee shop. I’d tried to hit on her then, but every time she’d managed to distract me. And then, without warning, she’d leave and throw the peace sign on the way out the door. I’d grown to be her friend after a while, abandoning propositions in exchange for information. I always thought, somewhere in my mind’s recesses, that I was playing the long game. Just studying the way she talked while she picked on me. She was fascinating. But now, at what had felt like the end of all things, I realized how glad I was that she was only my friend. Chiara was that person you don’t know you need until you do. Just then, I got hit with a wave of regret. I’d been such a fool. I could have kept Bianca as a friend too if I just never looked that night at the way she sat on the washer and—
“Hey. Don’t space out on me now motherfucker. We agreed to watch this movie and I think we should do it, even if we can’t have the popcorn. I’ll get delivery if you really want snacks, but it’s getting late and before I put your sleepy little self to bed we need to make fun of this so-called ‘film’.”
I looked at the curves of her face, the way the shadows cast against it in the firelight. Somehow, despite her blunt nature, Chiara had that peculiar, feminine way of knowing how you feel before even you do. I wished I never fucked the shit out of Bianca in my garage. That was true. I’d loved her, and after that night she was gone. She didn’t want to complicate things, her life was good. And mine was empty. I think she was scared of the feelings. Or maybe I just sucked. I don’t know why she’d claw through my skin that way if I did. Like a snowflake she fell into my hands, and I simply watched as she melted through my fingers. To know her was the crime, to lose her was the punishment. In her, love became an afterthought. A given.
The TV made that dumb intro noise of whatever subscription service we were tuning into this time. Chiara held the remote and looked intently at my cat.
“Do you want to watch this with me Mr. Eggie? Since Henry’s being a big boring retard?”
I rolled my eyes, and as the movie cam on and Eggman began purring, I saw my friend, and the fire, and how fucking stupid the movie looked. And I realized, I just might be alright.
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