It is mid-July but last night I left a window open and an autumn chill snuck in. It brought a squirrel that ran haywire across the kitchen windowsill and knocked over a couple of empties. The noise woke me up too early.
The cat is content on the warm place in the centre of the stove.
I have the window to the fire escape rigged so that it is always open a couple of inches. The constant flow of air masks the smell of natural gas that would otherwise fill the apartment since the pilot light went out a couple of months ago. I am too embarrassed to let my landlord in to light it. But not enough to make an effort at scrubbing the crust off of the burners and sweeping and washing the floors.
Half-awake, I turn on one of the other three burners to boil the kettle for tea. The cat is startled but doesn't jump down in time. The fur around her butt and tail are singed.
I try to console her but she wedges under the bed in the far corner where I can't reach.
Aside from the cat, I share my apartment with two cacti, a dressmaker, a record player, and a typewriter. If it weren’t for the murphy bed, I wouldn’t have a single piece of functional furniture.
This is where my darker side resides. Here, I delve into the past, upset the dead, channel ghosts, and indulge my neuroses/psychoses/morbid proclivities.
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