Fires of Friendship

The rapport between Okewu and myself, his lodger for the past six months, had long been hanging by a thread. Tensions escalated steadily, like a pot left on a simmer, until one fateful Tuesday afternoon when the pressure reached its boiling point.

Okewu, unusually returning from work early, walked in on what he deemed a heinous act. There I was, engaged in the delicate task of hand-washing a pair of my socks, employing his plastic salad spinner to expedite the drying process. The rhythmic whir of the spinner drowned out any awareness of Okewu's arrival, much like the breaking of a camel's back, the proverbial straw landing on this particular Tuesday.

To Okewu's horror, my socks were summarily tossed into the sink, the salad spinner flung to the floor, and its spinning days definitively ended under the weight of his stamp. In hindsight, it may have been a preventative measure to spare the world from witnessing the inaugural case of "athlete's gum."

I salvaged my soggy socks from the sink, irritation brewing but unspoken. After all, airing my grievances with Okewu could wait—wet socks on a first date presented a predicament quite distinct from explaining a sudden lack of teeth.

Okewu and I, long-standing comrades with shared escapades at Glastonbury, run-ins with the law, and joint ventures at the local market, discovered that dwelling under the same roof proved a challenge. Our personalities clashed amidst the domesticity, and the air grew thick with contempt.

The initial clash occurred a mere three days into my residency. In preparation for a job interview, I opted for a shortcut, ironing my shirt on the living room carpet rather than wrestle the ironing board from its kitchen abode. Alas, the iron toppled over, branding a scorch mark on the light grey carpet, a mere two months old. Okewu, understandably, erupted at the sight.

However, my resourcefulness kicked in. A charity shop yielded a hefty tome titled "Types of Ethical Theory." Cunningly positioned, it concealed the burn mark with its dull subject matter. Okewu, initially skeptical, was taken aback to find the mark magically disappeared. His carpet-fitter friend, summoned to the rescue, expertly cut a patch from beneath the TV unit, leaving the burn in the annals of history.

Despite Okewu's generosity in paying for the repairs at a discounted rate, he insisted on my reimbursement down to the last penny. The ethical theory book, once a strategic carpet cover, was sold on eBay to commence the repayment fund. Yet, the debt lingered, a testament to my perpetual financial struggle.

The salad spinner incident, coupled with the earlier carpet catastrophe, bookended my stay at Okewu’s with a dozen tales of woe, each narrating the consequences of my lackadaisical approach to life.

On another occasion, I managed to paint Okewu's new jacket while fetching a brush from the garage. A romantic evening at the flat ended in a fiasco as a match head, meant to light scented candles, carved a tiny crater into track three of "Unknown Pleasures," a damage still undiscovered by Okewu.

With the salad spinner serving as the proverbial last straw, I bid Okewu farewell one October morning. Despite the mishaps, our friendship endured. We shook hands, embraced, and planned to reconvene at a local bar the following weekend.

As Okewu headed to work, I packed my belongings into two holdalls. A simple breakfast, a final cigarette, and I left the house, adhering to the agreed-upon ritual of returning the key through the letterbox.

Yet, fate had one final twist in store. A smouldering cigarette end met a paper till receipt in the living room's waste basket, sparking a trial that, while deeming me responsible for the fire, acquitted me of intentional revenge for the eviction.

Okewu, now residing in France, received the news with a bemused smile, perhaps contemplating the absurdity of their shared history. The "Fires of Friendship," once metaphorical, now took on a literal hue, closing one chapter while leaving the door ajar for the unwritten tales that lay ahead.