13

23:51:00

And then he caught some food poisoning. He blamed it on the quality of food he ordered from the supermarket. It was a severe case and he ran to and from the toilet, appreciating the fact that toilet paper was in abundance. She suggested calling for a doctor. He refused. When he was sitting on the toilet during the night, dehydrated, she advised him to call for an ambulance. That was the last thing he wanted. He drank a lot of water and went on a starvation diet for a few days.

‘And what if you were really sick?’, she asked.

‘Then I wouldn’t have a choice.’

‘What if I got sick? Or unconscious?’

‘Then I would call for an ambulance. You’re not tied to this place. It’s my choice.’

‘Then, if you lived with someone else, let’s say, another human, would you allow him to have a normal life?’

He felt silent for a while.

‘What do you mean, another human? If I had another flatmate, I wouldn’t imprison him, that’s rather obvious. I think you are the last roommate I’ve had. Mother had a silly idea.’

‘She’s dead. She won’t have another one.’

He felt silent again this time at the realization of being an orphan himself. Father didn’t call him for a long time. The void created by the lack of mother’s calls was getting bigger. He missed her. He missed her when she was in Norway, but the pros outweighed the cons of her departure. He couldn’t stand living with her. He was too much of an adult to deal with her constant comments on his lifestyle and moans of disappointment. They were better when separate. Now he missed her in a different way. In a panicky way when he realized that he will never look at her again and that her support, however fragile it was, would never comfort him.

The food poisoning was the last disturbing thing that happened. From then on the online shopping was flawless, electricity worked like magic and water allowed him to take constant showers.

She unpacked the Ikea furniture and from the neighbors borrowed the tools to set the bed. When she went for a walk, he came to her room and adjusted screws, as she didn’t have enough experience and the bed was wobbly. Grapefruit's furniture took a big part of the room. There was a fluffy teddy bear imprisoned behind the white bars of bed. There was a selection of towels and tiny clothes folded on the chest of drawers. There were some children books stacked on the shelf. The sheets were spread and over the bed hung a tiny moon lamp which apparently she bought on her own. You could sense that the grapefruit was going to appear soon.

For someone looking from the outside, there might have been some pathology behind him leaving his room only when she left the flat. He didn’t want to have an eye contact with her. He didn’t really want to get to know her. Feeling her things, listening to her steps and talking with her from time to time was enough to create a picture of her in his mind. They didn’t have to socialize. She was there for some reason and he learned to appreciate this reason once the mother was dead. The flat was noisy like in his childhood years, the doors were moving, the kitchen was full of smells and he had to adjust to the selection of music: whether it was his or hers. She bought him a couple of things, which he appreciated. They were mainly comics and sweets and they were light but, as she said, she couldn’t carry anything heavy. That was her act of kindness. She also bought him a nice-smelling shower gel from some fancy beauty shop. It was wrapped with a ribbon and smelled of citrus fruit. They didn’t talk. They didn’t have to. They already knew each other and that was enough.