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.
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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
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