Queue this up first. Everything hits different with the right soundtrack.
The door opens with a low whine, and I walk in, fingers searching for the switch, my flats abandoned in the tiny vinyl entranceway before the carpet. The backpack slips off my shoulder without ceremony. The kitchen light turns on.
Well, the kitchen light. The key light in my 200-square-foot studio stays off. I should get it changed.
I think I say that every time I notice it.
I don’t really need the light, to be honest. There is nothing here. Seven steps ahead: the tiny kitchenette, fridge, stove, sink, dishwasher. Eight steps to the right there’s the desk disguised as a dining table, the single chair, the stack of books I’ve actually read annotated to the margins in pencil, the notebook with a half-finished paper on Morrison’s “Unspeakable Things Unspoken” that I will show no one. Two steps from the desk is the box spring mattress I call a bed. Two steps from the bed is the tiny hallway that fits me and a pedestal sink across from a shower and toilet.
The sink had a toothbrush; I didn’t use this morning. I hadn’t used it yesterday, either. Nobody was going to get close enough to know.
My life in one, empty, room.
