etcetera

The front door open when you wake up in the morning is the giveaway. The mark of late night insouciance. He says there's ghosts going in and out of our house, but I don't believe him. People are coming in and out of the house, I say. People are the ghosts.

The neighbours came over to let us know that our front door had been left open. Thanks, I said. That's real nice of you to let us know. It wouldn't be so bad if a stranger wandered in and lay next to me for a bit actually. I suppose you have to consider who the type of people would be that might do that, though.

That said, I was quite glad to wake up alone this morning. Somnambulating with sleepless blind to the toilet I thought, 'this will assist my ability to be a normal person around him today.' It does feel like everything that happens at night is void. Especially when you don't have to face it in the morning. Not that it would have been a big deal; I get the feeling he's pretty nonchalant about stuff. We could have some fun, we're going to be good friends, we're going to be good friends. Etcetera.

I make coffee in an attempt to catch up with his MDMA head (which by the way, is the least active of any I've seen - though I suppose he's tall (does that make a difference?) and most of it's going on underneath that perpetual quiet smirk). He rolls a joint from the roaches in his van. And so we meet half way on the kitchen floor.

Kitchen floors are perfect meeting places. Many times I've found myself slumped against the cupboards, drinking tea spiked by the underneath of my liquor-bled tongue and ranting about shit that only makes sense when unspoken.

At parties, people always freak out when I get onto the tea and coffee.

"What are you doing?!" they demand.

I'm threatening their inebriety.

"Bro." The passive-malicious sarcastic, one-syllabled serious face. I am still going to be a million miles ahead of you after three of these, if that's what you're concerned about. 

"I like tea, alright. Gimme a break. Got any soy milk? Don't worry, I'll have it black."

So, naturally, when you join me with the kettle, you're on my good side.

"Would you like a straw for your tea?" I ask.

He accepts. Well done.

"Teabag in or out?"

Out. Typical. Everyone wants it out.

"I am going to wear your bucket hat," I tell him.

This is how my belly comes to be pressed against the floor, face shielded by the faux-fisherman costume, fingers woven around the front of the tea mug. The straw describes the gap between my tea and the hat's horizon over my nose and cheeks. A summer cocktail picnic going on at 3:42am in my October kitchen. I see myself from outside, a picture of future-nostalgia.

I don't recall finishing my tea but somehow the empty mug ends up precariously perched on the edge of the bench. I imagine my arm stretching up off the floor, roof-wards, blindly finding (feeling for) the balancing point. This is probably how it happened.

My horizontal shape translates two rooms over. Belly to floor; back to mattress; stomach to stomach. It's all the same.

Your stuff is strewn everywhere (from before I got there, I might clarify). And your bed is bare (also from before I got there). I think about the other people I know who've fucked in this room -- and this bed even -- and revel in being part of this disparate lineage. I feel we've honoured the room's original walls.

Pull out, put on some washing, start again, give up.

Coffee?

We sit in the lounge and watch some cartoon film. The after-chaos calm is interrupted by aggressive thumps coming from the laundry. The washing machine's got a demon in it (or the clothes inside it?). It's throwing itself around the laundry floor, jumping centimeters sideways. I start yelling abuse at it but the old hunk of plastic's not listening to me. STOP. Just stop. STOP. IT.

The same words I'll give myself in the tomorrow hours of today. I will pragmatically organise how to avoid my habits next time. I will make strategies to change the patterns which hold hands with my non-consequence-bearing second reality. Then I will wake up in the morning. It will be sunny. And I will want the door open.