JUNK BOX PLS

I have to leave the windows open. All of them. There are no curtains, the feathered palms gave sufficient privacy. There is little breeze so they don’t move, the wide open windows. Before, doing this would let the noise in, now there is barely any. I don’t know where the crows have gone, but I can hear the smaller birds that were once muffled by the sound of aggressive traffic and city. Today looking out all I see are more palms and plants I don’t know the name of.

I mainly notice the dust on the kitchen table in the morning. Round and white. A glass of milk. The edge of my hand gathers the fine silt. Ash white on flesh pink. It takes about seven full slow strokes to get it all. I then wipe my hand on the back of my black trousers. It disperses in about twenty minutes as I move amongst the rest of the dust in the invisible white blood stream of our apartment. I have never timed it or counted anything, it feels pointless. 

If I stop thinking and look and try to focus on nothing I can see some of it come in and catch the light. Its entry is most busy when I sleep. The smell of the blown-out-candles eases my mind, an earthy familiar smell. The man who lived in the broken tent around the corner by the traffic light, had a similar smell, mixed with another similar smell. Matches, sticky dried sweat, the build up of not washing, it had such depth that it smothered the assumed scent of shit and piss. A smell that reminds me that I am returning to being human. I picture all my holes breathing it in, ass, mouth, ears and the tiny pores of my changing skin. The smell and dust. Closing my eyes I see a pile of deep brown soil. This helps me sleep.

My fear of the empty adjacent apartment has almost gone. I write that and immediately feel it again. Remembering being scared makes me scared now. My nails are dirty. In the movie, the speeding heartbeat would be incorporated into the soundtrack. How do you distinguish fear from instinct? I can look out my bedroom window and see the full length of the vacant apartment. Everyday their closed window grows more opaque. I can still imagine a couple living there. Looking into our bedroom, watching us kiss and dress and sleep and find ourselves tripping over.

The script I started to write before all this, feels to no purpose. The non-binary hero had a rockabilly haircut, angular face and lived in a new future city world, something like, but nothing like now. They were an amalgamate of a getaway driver, cabbie and delivery guy. Most streets were empty, all traffic lights green. Nature had won. The interior is simple, no buttons, just a steering wheel. A heart shaped locket swinging from an air freshener swinging from the floating rear-view mirror. They would open it, look and smile whilst blowing a pink bubble of gum. The camera would never show what was inside. POP. You would assume it was two or maybe one photo of someone important to them. And then at the end of the film you would finally see who it was, but I never finished it, so didn’t figure that bit out. Why would I now.

Maybe people ate the crows, more flesh then the little ones. Curious creatures. I don’t leave the apartment much except to collect the weekly box of food. This silence is loud. I rarely see the little birds but hear them. An image of two people holding hands comes to mind, I probably saw it in a commercial once. I have started rereading books hoping to find something I missed the first time, a detail of hands or a good quote to underline or transcribe elsewhere. I do other good things, like stretch and clean surfaces. I wish I could sleep more but that doesn’t work. Men in dresses ride horses across a dry black surface, I become everyone.

We stopped talking once she died. It was not long after everyone had stopped paying rent, or anything. I didn’t know what to do. I had always asked her too many questions. Nothing was explained or the explanations led to more questions and then all the handmade flyers started being pushed through the front gate. I read everything but none of it helped me understand. She died and I am still alive. I open books to hear conversations and make more conversations in my head. I read that the majority of dust is shed human skin. Is it trying to reconfigure itself inside me to become something else. I hold my breath. The beating heart sound track gets louder.

I READ THIS PART ALOUD. 

I had one great photo of the two of us on my phone. No one’s phone works anymore. I can see the dust better on it’s shiny black surface. I dare not look at you in the obsidian like mirror.