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.
