Howdy friends,
Welcome back to the run. We left off with me throwing out wild accusations about one of history’s most beloved philosophers. My intention was to finish that up in the next post, but I found myself going deeper than I originally intended. There a still a couple books that want digesting and rushing it would be a shame. Since I want to keep in touch better this time around, here’s a little something different while the next bit gets the finishing touches. I hope y’all enjoy the change of pace.
A Locked Door
The place smelled faintly of old fat. An unwashed frying pan on the electric hob still held some darkened crumbs caught in an uneven film of rapeseed oil. It was a small kitchen; there was just enough room along one wall for a counter with a stainless steel sink, the hob and an empty bit of countertop in between for preparing food or stacking dirty dishes. It wasn't the kind of kitchen in which people lived. They came in to do the mean business of warming food, washing up and then left as soon as the work was done.
The walls on either side of the room made just enough space for a door in the back wall, but only barely. That doorframe in the back, thick with several layers of white paint, had a notch cut into it to allow for the last protruding inch of countertop. The door itself was of the same kind as the door to the bathroom but the knob and lock looked as though they belonged on the front door of the place rather than on an interior door.
In front of the door stood a black plastic trashcan, tucked into the back left corner of the room. It was so tight there that the left door of the cabinet beneath the sink banged against the trashcan when it opened. The cabinet mostly stayed closed. They didn't often need the plunger which dwelled down there between the siphon, a motley collection of dried sponges and a tipped over can of spray-on oven cleaner with a missing lid and a rusty rim on the bottom.
The rest of the place fit the kitchen. The linoleum in the similarly sized bathroom was coming up in one corner and was cut roughly around the base of the toilet. The beige carpet in the hallway, the living room and the two bedrooms had been trampled flat in the doorways and a worn path from the couch to the hallway was clearly visible. The place was neither clean nor dirty, just used. The couch in particular was well-used, resting a comfortable distance from a large TV that was new enough to look slightly out of place.
There was a window in the living room, an aloe vera plant on the sill and curtains pulled back to let daylight in. Since nobody really bothered looking out, the window wasn't often washed. Shortly after the newest residents had arrived, a few family photographs had been hung up, but the wallpaper's faded floral patterns weren't much disturbed by the posing vacationers. The yellow light from the round, milky glass fixture on the ceiling didn't lend itself to illuminating old memories.
The front door, upon being unlocked by a resident, scraped audibly over the carpet, once to admit them and then quickly once more to close behind them. It was the second scrape that mattered. The people living here weren't so much happy to come home as they were relieved to have the door close on another day. The thing about the place that kept them coming back was that their home asked very little of them. They'd' been living here for a while now, although they hadn't planned on staying so long. When they had arrived, the kitchen in particular had seemed cramped. The cups, bowls and pots needed to be stacked just so in order to fit and the cupboards allowed storage for the most basic staples and little else.
With so little space, it had been disappointing to find the door on the back wall of the kitchen locked. The landlord said they'd get a key but somehow it had been forgotten. It was hard to say how big the room behind the door ought to be, but nobody ever wondered long enough make a guess. The trashcan had found its home in front of the door almost immediately and it was a good spot, mostly. The cabinet door beneath the sink was only slightly obstructed and, since the trashcan they had brought with them was too tall to fit under the sink, it was only natural to leave it in the back corner.
The landlord didn't need to visit the place much. When the sink clogged, a bit of drain cleaner and a few pumps with the plunger normally did the trick. Meals were made, dishes were washed and sometimes the folks even gave the outside of the cabinets a quick rubdown with a soapy dishcloth. Still, it had been quite some time since anyone had gone to the trouble of emptying out the cupboards to wipe down the shelves and it showed. The same was true of the oven. The can of oven cleaner had been under the sink when they had moved in and there was probably still a little bit left in it. You'd have to shake it to know, though, and nobody was in any hurry to find out.
My nostalgia knows this place. It recognizes it in the cramped house we moved to after the divorce, the smoky trailer my 10 year old self struggled to sleep in on overnights with my father, my childhood friend's house where everything felt claustrophobic and cozy all at the same time, and even in the tiny apartment I called all my own as I ventured towards adulthood. Yes, I definitely know this place.