the animal three

And so I sat, wondering why Frank wasn’t as usual cooking in his gray suit which he had worn to some office job, which Peter had mentioned, that was an office job. But it could let alone be something else such as some kink where every day he was wanted in the same odd gray suit, which wasn’t flattering, it was too big on him, as if he had lost weight.

So he sat there in a stripy t-shirt with all of his tattoos seen on his hands which were dominantly black and white. He just glanced at me with his light blue eyes and offered me a drink. For me the day was over, as I would scramble with yesterday and allow myself to sleep some more, but for Frank it had just started unfortunately and as I found out, it was the beginning of him not being able to get back to work. The company had dissolved entirely, without a proper explanation to the poor man who had worked there for a few months and years. It didn’t make much sense, but he said that he had some mate which went through the same thing and in the end what happened that the other lad was also left with no job and now it was back to the drawing board for Frank after so many years. Now, he wouldn’t even be able to pay his daughter. 

He just thanked God that her mother was working, allowing some cushion but I could sense that the ex wouldn’t be as happy of hearing of the dissolving. And the dissolving made sense to me and Frank, but it surely wouldn’t to some entirely angry ex which had nothing else but to lash out to the poor man. I never knew who would start the arguments, but when you see too many you know that anything would cause it to flare up. And I suspected that one of those things would be the lack of Frank having a job now. I just blinked, took the vodka, which I hoped he would still be able to afford and excused myself, patting him on the back. I liked to listen, but I was bad at empathy and Frank seemed lighter once I had left anyway. 

The day continued as I was too paranoid to sleep and I stayed awake, hearing absolutely everyone storm either into the kitchen as we shared a mutual wall, diving everything anyone ever ate and myself. I could always hear Frank for that sole reason. I could always hear Julien struggle, because he always spoke out loud that he couldn’t eat. He was a vegan and he wasn’t doing it because it was healthy, he confessed to me that it was a lot because partially he just couldn’t stand meat by himself and that he just struggled eating at all. That explained his very slim figure and how he could be taken as bones. He seemed a bit modelesque if he had a bit of a prettier face, but instead he was himself also in an office job and he always seemed like a dull programmer to me. I could always see him twirl in his chair and probably flirt with some office chick by throwing paper balls at her. 

I wondered about his sexuality briefly, because when I had just arrived in the apartment he had his dark eyes staring at me across the hallway, not saying much, but just staring, a bit curious and I had thought lust. Julien, like the rest of our apartment was single. The only dating person that I had known was actually Dick. 

That morning I could hear Nathan, who was rather old open up the parcels he had gotten. He would get parcels nearly every day and he would always open them up in the kitchen when no one was watching, so that the trash would be taken out by Peter instead of himself. The cats would get out and sit on his old legs, as he would unwrap. He made sure that no one would see and sometimes even huff and pick up the parcel to get back into his room and then he would be there to unwrap it fully in peace. The only time I had seen him get some gold wrapped in socks in the mail and sometimes it was candy which he would leave with a small note, saying for everyone to grab. 

He would end up sharing the chocolates rather often, but because once he had left the room door open and then I saw all the boxes, it seemed as if the people who sent him stuff knew that he had deeply enjoyed the snack. 

Once, because everything which happens is unique and every circumstance becomes unique and it’s a reminder that perhaps after all the people in the trains rehash and you won’t ever see them. When I was a child I wanted to write about train rides a lot, because I would meet so many weird people, which didn’t make much sense to me. Once there was  a guy who told me he would tell me a short story, which was educational. In the end the conclusion had been that the boy’s ass fell off in those words, concluding that no one should try to find too many adventures on their own ass. That made sense, but it still worried my parents that I had heard it. 

I wondered how many more parcels would Nathan receive, but that wasn’t for me to answer, but rather to his senders to confess. I thought that I wouldn’t mind actually managing to get some letters myself even if I had no one to be honest which would be happy to receive from myself, so I was left alone and stuck again. 

And Nathan had started his day onwards by playing his guitar. The only other instrument in the household was Frank’s karaoke machine which he would use in the kitchen as he would wait for his coffee to boil (we have a really bad coffee machine). In the end the karaoke had been so bad that everyone decided to vote silently and the machine was at least tucked into his room and used at more sensible hours. 

Then the hall was graced with Dick getting screamed at by Nathan for deciding to pick up the afternoon mail. In that moment I had realized that all my listening in the morning had lead to me falling asleep entirely, giving me the face of regret on what had I been doing all night that I had slept through all of the daylight, leaving nothing but a trace of the night outside on my window. I only slightly opened the door so I could hear their screams and Julien coming back from the kitchen with a cup of coffee, he caught my eye so I waved him over. He went inside my room. 

What’s the big deal, was what he had asked. To which I only asked why the fuck were they yelling about mail now. I had found out that apparently since Nathan moved in (I had slept on this, apparently) that he had been the only one collecting everyone’s mail, to make sure that no one else would grab his parcels, so that then he would surely be the one ripping them open. 

Another way to get people to talk is when you’re both filled with laundry so badly that you each take a washing machine each and just sit there, usually Dick sits eating apples, I’ve yet to have it with Nathan, but even if Dick had told me that he’s here because he likes to be among young men, he seems to be highly avoidant. Then he had spilled that Nathan is a former rent boy, so the parcels could be bribes, could be gifts from former lovers which had decided to share their wealth with him (what else would explain the golden gifts?) and that had made it a very thickly filled with information laundry session with Dick, who didn’t bother to wash his binder and he had glanced at me and I guess he decided to not show up. I’ve never actually seen Dick without his binder, so I wondered if he had ever washed it. 

A thing I hadn’t actually nagged about was the fact that due to the parcels, there was something else which came as a change with Nathan. It’s not that he even spoke openly about it, it was just solely assumed that since Nathan orders a pizza everyday, then he should be the one opening the door. The sole time when it’s not Nathan opening is when Lazarus texts me that he’s coming either with some game or after sugar, but then I can guarantee myself that I don’t get Nathan’s wrath. Nathan orders a pizza every single day and I’ve never guessed which flavor is it other than the pizza smell. He takes plates beforehand, so that he never had to share the pizza in the kitchen and locks himself there and possibly feeds the cats it or some Pussi which is always kept in the fridge. The ad of that cat food makes me cringe, since they pronounce it a very long and satisfied ‘Pussaay’. 

The first time Nathan had talked to me was whether we would have inspections to price the apartment because in the previous place he had lived they had done it all the time and he had to hide his cats almost during every single one of them and nagged that he didn’t want any of them under the bed again. I wondered why did he have to hide the cats, but before I could ask he just left. The discussion had also been me convincing him that we didn’t have any inspections here because I didn’t think Peter had wanted to sell anyway. Julien tried to chip in on the conversation last minute, but instead he just stood there, probably thinking about food. 

-

I haven't been splitting the chapters besides one further ahead down the road to be very honest. I'm still sticking to splitting it to the count of each Nano day. I've been writing it with reaching the count every day just well... by how it should be. I should really try to do a head start, but I've been tired or depressed so it's been hard, but I'm still proud of myself how I'm doing it, so yeah. 

Mostly these parts were written after very serious brainstorming with Callie. So pretty much everything was planned out. I'll also try to post every three days at least, just that I've been running to catch up with Nano to be honest:)

I had an office job once and the company dissolved randomly, I'll never find out what exactly happened xD so I based it off for Frank. 

I actually had an odd fellow in the train tell that story in Russian and it follows me to this day. It was far more colourful when I heard it and was called the boy with the golden bellybutton screw and once he found how to unscrew it his ass fell off, in those words. I was rather young when I had heard it and the guy insisted for me to listen to it, as he stated it was educational. 

Pussi is an actual Swedish cat food and it always cracks me up and the ad is real. 

A lot of the things or oddities are things which I've went through so yeah, like inspections. 

I hope you enjoyed it and if you did, please leave a comment below or tell me via tumblr:) I'd really love to see that

Thank you so much

<3

Jamie

the animal two

Sometimes the paranoia creeps on every noise until everyone is asleep at their ten pm. 

And I don’t want to leave the house the whole day, it’s gotten to the point that sometimes I just can’t stand either of them, curling up under the covers entirely and sulking, because nothing seems to go my way. Because nothing really ever goes on, nothing swirls enough outside my own personal void to do anything at all. And if I can’t beat my own melancholy how am I supposed to live outside it?

In the end Lazarus ends up knocking on my own door and I just shoo him off right after giving him some sugar which I didn’t even bother to ask if that was something he had decided to come after. I peeked out and looked at all of the closed doors, because everyone still wanted some privacy besides Peter who would smoke cigarettes in the kitchen, scrubbing his eyes and observing Dick spit in other people’s food. Peter was the owner of the apartment, an immigrant himself and oddly enough in the apartment we were all filled with people from elsewhere who came in here perhaps for a better life, but I couldn’t answer that for anyone at all. I didn’t know what had we all decided to live in the same place, that’s why English was so widespread in the house and was what everyone spoke to each other, never nagging at any other skill, which was something my mom warned me, pulling my collar up, doing my tie for some event.

I hadn’t called her in a good while and I could see her short hair tucked behind her ears to reveal her earrings and her constant short fringe which went through all of the years. Mother never changed.

Lazarus excused himself, quickly glancing at Peter who just sat there looking ahead. I wondered for a brief while what were Peter’s problems and what was it that ended up upon his thirty year old shoulders. He didn’t work and Dick had told me that he hadn’t worked a day, since he rented this out to five other people, something which was very common to see. People would end up getting big spaces and then rent out to everyone else who was in need and due to the crisis which made everything seem a bit dystopic in the capital due to that, so in the end you would see landlords not working and making more than enough. Peter just continued to look ahead and barely even blinked as I poured myself a coffee, because I didn’t want to fall asleep still at nine p.m. regretting that the day had been spent entirely sleeping, avoiding all the noises which had been coming from Dick’s room as his boyfriend had been over. They were a wide theatrical closing curtain of arguments, love and even louder fights. Today they didn’t bother to hide their excitement and I was presuming Peter could’ve been hiding from it in the furthest room which was the kitchen. 

The person who I barely saw these days was Frank who was an early bird and I had nicknamed Cock who has breakfast at four a.m. every single day and usually turns on the old radio rather quietly or the telly, just something to numb his thoughts and all of the apartment house was filled with people who were somehow lost. Somehow had forced us to rent a room whether it was unavailability or lack of funds. Cock was the only one of us who was a father, with his girl visiting us from while to while and she would always make a mess out of the bathroom, which would leave Peter furious if it was anyone else other than Cock. But they somehow bonded as friends and I had mistaken them for lovers in the beginning, because I always presume that two close male friends are lovers. I always had. 

I stared at them for a while, before realizing how straight had both of them been and realizing that most likely the only gay men had been me and Dick. Then Nathan, a much older gay man had moved in who didn’t talk a lot, but Peter would do the talking after he had once shared a cigarette with him in the kitchen and had heard everything. 

Usually they’re very strict on pets, but when it came to Nathan he was allowed all of his cats. Which included three, two black ones and an orange one. They would wander all over the place and the problem started showing up when Julien began to get allergic to them. He would sneeze really loudly so I could hear him across the corridor and he would complain about the mucus nearly all the time, as one of the cats would pass. Nathan himself was a former rent boy as we had found out. That was all Peter had told me as I had passed it onto Dick later on in the day, as he was counting his needles for some reason in his room. His room had been rather tidy and seemed to match him. He would work out usually in front of an audience or he would keep the door open. 

I wondered what caused him to move in here but I just presumed it had been some trans issue and looking at him I could only wonder what a great misfortune it had been to grow up as someone else and only then find yourself. But then I wasn’t one to say how exactly was it, but then maybe it would’ve been easier to find yourself entirely if you knew you had to start searching perhaps? Would that have actually made everything easier or much worse? I didn’t dare to ask Dick and I felt bad, but then I heard that he actually went by Dick with a bigger smile than Richard, which had sounded far too formal. He had a boyfriend who was trans as well and who would shoot glares at me. Once said boyfriend was eating a donut and stared at me, saying that he was just as gay as I was, to which I replied, well, of course, doh. But I still had gotten a glare. And I just decided to avoid the fellow, but instead he would glare at me very oh so often.

I wondered too much about them in the beginning, more out of curiosity like I knew that I didn’t know much about Nathan or Julien. That kind of curiosity but the more I would try to speak up, the boyfriend who didn’t even bother to introduce himself didn’t even bother to talk to me at all. They at least seemed to be dating for quite a while, which seemed surprising because Dick wouldn’t glare at me and sit with me on the balcony as we would exchange cigarettes, the main event of course was the fact that his surgery was ahead. I found out that his boyfriend wasn’t going to have it anytime soon, entangled with the fact that he was too busy sorting out his mental health history with a psychiatric doctor and that was holding him back from actually going out and signing up for all the therapy which would determine the fact that he was all okay to go and proceed with the said surgery. 

I just kept listening to Dick as he was playing with the pack of cigarettes which I had set to the table up to offer, looking at me a bit dazed and confused, too many things going around his head. He joked that trans men all have the same haircut, since he and his boyfriend had an undercut and a few fellow other ones he knew had the same cut as well. I just didn’t know what to reply. With Dick for some reason maybe due to some online fighting Lazarus had told me, I just decided to keep my mouth shut on trans issues and I knew that I had known nothing, that’s why I only listened when it came to Dick. 

Lazarus didn’t get along with Dick either, actually Lazarus didn’t get along with anyone besides me, because on the days when I had the dawn of my depression, that’s usually what happened, I would just solely listen to people. It was hard to read and let my eyes rest on any page at all, so I would just jump around and listen. Heck, I’d even wake up earlier or just not go to sleep to see Frank’s morning rituals of him cooking his eggs. And one of those morning he had sat there, and the thing is if you stay with people long enough they’ll talk to you. The thing is, everyone talks. 

For a day I stayed in another guest house and I noticed that the whole family slept in the living room, it was three of them and that seemed to shake me inside, wondering about the jobs and employancy, how did it work. It wasn’t something I was too happy to see at first, but it surely was interesting to see how many people gave up work entirely or work had given up on them and they had given up every single room in their place for someone else to rent it and get money. I wondered how long would it take that said family to move out of their living room. 

-

I'm posting the chapters as the length of each Nano day to be very honest and I've finally caught up on my word count, I'm currently neck to neck with every day, but I'm proud. I have been struggling to write, so I brainstorm for every chapter with Callie because then it's easier and then I just start storytelling but until then my mind is blank, so that has been my method of work.

I didn't speak of the influences for this story in it's entire form. Callie had used to write a lot as well and that's how we met (she drifted into more historical fiction and now edits my work for typos and is my historical advisor for To Miles) and her Nano novel a few years back was about a set of guys which were going on a trip and it was filled with different stories sort of Trainspotting-esque, which she says was inspired by my novel Papercut (which you can find on this blog), so her Nano novel inspired me to write this. Also Trainspotting and Pulp's music heavily inspired the mood of this novel as well. 

I've had really really bad experiences with apartments up to the point that my paranoia had gotten ptsd levels of trauma, so that's the side which explains where such feelings come in this chapter. Also I'm trying not to rush ahead to tell xD 

Also I'm doing youtube videos these days, so don't forget to check out my latest video. 

I hope you're enjoying the animal so far, if you are, please tell me so below in the comment section.

Thank you

<3

Jamie

the animal

Life is like a train ride with the same people in it. 

Because they don’t rotate much after you’re done with high school and after that everything just seems still and it ended up even being stuck working for a few years afterwards or at least I had hoped. I ended up having my mind strangle all possibilities and end up and the thing is that no one tells you how scary it is afterwards. No one tells you how you’ll feel as if you have no control. 

It feels like right after my parent’s divorce when reality has the darkest colours you’ll ever see, that it will bend harsher and harsher, trying to do a straight edge. It will end up being a sharp angle to make sure that it could cut surfaces. 

There is an even sharper frustration with all the phone calls with my parents with no direct explanation why had I done it. Leaving it days behind and allowing me to miss the fact that I had no friends. That I had wanted nothing with those who would say that I cannot speak openly for gay men even if I happen to be one. I think that after that anyone would be able not to do anything at all with the people who had uttered it. 

I had no messages which only proved the fact that the desire to ditch talking was more than mutual. It just started feeling lonely after realizing the fact that the people only spoke to me because I had spoken to them.

I had locked myself in the room for the past few days and still managed to call the parents to come up with some lie, because it was still the end of summer and University hadn’t started yet, so I could still be anywhere, only with the fact that I had started using the money by starting with an Acne leather jacket, feeling a bit unfulfilled I stopped there for the time being, feeling even more idle, sitting in the McDonald’s opposite and watching everyone just scramble through their lives, somehow knowing everything and having friends. They had lovers too. 

If you fuse too much, then the mind will be the same. I wouldn’t even understand where I end and where I begin and how far fetched the earth was, I just felt heavily dipped down in depression with no medication, allowing the whole world to be entirely dark.

Blocket had no apartments available. Only rooms for the whole city and even then it was a bizarre question of pure luck with no love. Maybe life would smile more, knowing that there is absolutely nothing to offer you. 

I don’t think people understand how dire the situation about the apartments is because there is literally nothing other than odd scams and weird stories which pass from mouth to mouth, which I’ve heard the trans guy say in the apartment I rent the room from. He always widens his eyes, walking around in a crop top with his black binder being seen around the neck, as I wondered if it actually bothered him, but upon further questioning one night when he was entirely hammered and laying around in the corridor, saying he had worn it for the past fourteen hours, that it didn’t matter, since his surgery was scheduled so soon. I wondered how did he even have the guts. I watched him lying on the floor, everyone else gone and entirely tucked in bed, probably about to step out and tell us to fucking shut it. Instead I just watched him twirl and turn until I had to yank him up and chuck him in his room, watching his shaved head be the last goodbye. 

He would tell of people who would get kicked out from the oddest of reasons like putting their name on their door, the actual landlord knowing nothing that their tenant was renting out, to last minute scams where everything was dropped and you’d be left in front of an apartment with all your stuff. Some would list apartments as rooms with shared kitchens in shackles, some would rent out their garages just with a broom to state it’s an apartment and out of desperation you take absolutely anything, feeling nothing else tickle your bone because there is nothing. 

And I would try to explain that, chewing on candy I had bought earlier, allowing the University to be in the same city, allowing it to be less suspicious of what I had decided to use the money on. 

Sometimes frustration on my parents would get the best of me as they had kicked out my brother, Tom for the sake of fake names on a notebook, that he had sucked some guy’s dick and they had walked on him being all frisky and all. And that had pissed me off, that they just stopped giving him money and even if we hadn’t been close enough to talk, that pissed me off, not even that I had no idea that he was also gay, but the fact that they had entirely let him go and allow God to take care of it. That had been their response, let God just solely take care of it. That God would deal with it. How can you even say that?

By the time I had asked Julien that, he was just done with my whole story, eating his toast with jam. He just looked at me with empty eyes, telling me to tell Dick instead. I just shook my head, saying that I had told him that already. Well, then he sighed, looking at me and saying that perhaps I should stop whining. 

Maybe he was right, but I still felt lonely, watching him wash the only dish because Peter would yell at him for every single dish left unwashed after every single meal. Then he’d accuse of stashing all the dishes, as if we were some creatures hogging some fine china. Julien just coughed, as if he wanted to be excused and I made him way from the tiny Ikea-filled kitchen with all the glasses being from every possible country, but still being impossible to differ from the ones you’d drank from last. 

I would go out to the city, just to eat out wherever I could, having a good meal among a bunch of other people talking very loudly, making me feel more alienated, making me realize how bad my language knowledge was and how huge the barrier was. And I wasn’t the only one, people would complain on the forums how they had lived here for twenty years and that would drive them on and on, no friends, no lovers, just them and their movies. They’d manage to binge all of the X Files in one day, no longer seeing where would time end. I wondered if that was how I was going to be in twenty years. I wondered far too much, now clutching myself in the room, no longer feeling the desire to even go outside, knowing the streets around nearly inside out and no one was celebrating Halloween anyway, so the vampire teeth were just for me to enjoy. I should’ve bought candy but instead I ended up watching horror movies alone in the dark, hearing Peter bring some friends over which were lying on the corridor, passed out already and someone was surely a one night stand. 

I shouldn’t even be writing this down. I feel my eyes bloodshot from the lack of sleep and movie watching, marathoning the 30th right into the 31st and 1st’s skull. 

I wished of far too many things. 

I could hear Julien making his way outside, and I only pondered on what he would be eating now, but it seemed like some odd diet of fruit and vegetables at first, until it dawned on me that he was vegan and I had heard it from Dick, who had spat in Julien’s food, saying to never leave food and he then watched Julien eat it. 

I felt as if I could take photos of this place people maybe would budge and open their doors and instead of selling apartments like dead weight they would rent more, but people wanted money fast just like anyone else and somehow the prospect of waiting years for a large sum was better than renting out. But then maybe there were studies to prove otherwise, who knows. 

I just felt more miserable. 

I felt like hiding even further in my room and prospect was surely dark, but it seemed to give an excuse to stay inside and hear all the noises of the six people apartment which was driving me wild and comfortable that no one would bother to walk in with me in it.

Paranoia. 

Paranoia drove us all to live, desire to kill was just inflicted heavily by fear, it was more than just a mere flick of the wrist, it was pre-murder.

Murder. I would laugh as Julien would say it as he would speak of animals and I’d be eating yoghurt in front of him, just to piss him off, saying that a cow had died, 

had died,

making this delicious strawberry yoghurt. I was said that yoghurt didn’t come in beef flavor just to piss him off even more. Maybe I was becoming more like Dick, getting far too pissed off at people. 

The only reason I had gotten out of my room on Halloween was to get some candy from Lazarus who was the neighbor who always asked us for sugar, just because he craved it. 

I watched him eat it spoon after spoon, as if the pick and mix wasn’t as hurtful for him, but instead he’d do that and he’d always ask me once the stores would close with a mere text and that is how with an aching racing heart I had to walk outside into the corridor, fearful of running into anyone and I go to Lazarus, the cunt and he just greet me with a small nod. We had traded games before and it had ended on sugar. 

-

To be honest I took some time off to try and prepare for Nanowrimo. I've started new medication and I've been having a really heavy depression as I'm getting used to them. It's been awfully hard, even now I'm forcing myself to write the backstory. I've been staring at everything besides the document and day 2 started. I reached day 1's goal. 

The idea came to me from living in different places and I kind of wanted to head on address what it's like being a foreigner and living in Sweden and so on. It's not as paranoid and depressing though xD but it's what I wanted to base it off and tell about the apartment situation and how it's like to live and share your space. 

I binged all this chapter yesterday entirely. 

The first phrase came to me ages ago and I just held it dear.

I kind of kept this year's Nano idea heavily under wraps, because I wanted to surprise everyone and don't worry I miss not doing To Miles this year, but TM is the only story even when heavily depressed I know where I'm going with it and what to write because it became my blood really. 

I kind of want to remain quiet for once on the backstory and let everything tell by itself. I'm qute open here, I've been more brutally honest these days. 

I've been so depressed that Callie had been putting on different music to cheer me up and one of them was No Control by 1D (yes, I'm trash xD and I'm Gryles trash) and that was the first song I wrote this story to.

At this point I have no title. So I'm thinking about it right now xD this was actually a working title, but I like it and I'll go ahead with it :) forgive me xD

Thank you

<3

Jamie

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