PART I "The Kitchen"

Curtains hung down, extending to the length of the floor, teasing the floor as a dress does, mid waltz. The curtains wouldn’t normally be considered anything special, but in the midst of this altogether stuffy room, they are only things which appear light weightless. In my view, which is blurred by my stubbornness against wearing glasses, they make me weightless, and for the brief moments my mind envelopes their grand descent to the faded linoleum floor, I forget my worries. Interior monologue has always been easy for me. When there is no one to speak to, there is still me! I regroup my stance, having been leaning on the door frame, and I step out of the kitchen and into the hallway which, extends down the length of the house, connecting the few rooms of the apartment like nearly matched, yet mismatched puzzle pieces; it doesn’t quite fit. I laugh aloud, amused, bemused, altogether content with its awkwardness because it is not mine. I find what is not mine though, often times, much more interesting; a piece of gum on the coffee table in the living room of not my apartment; the iced pop (last one, and red to boot) in the freezer of the refrigerator in not my apartment; the already beat up, but not too worn in sweatshirt hanging on the side of the door in not my apartment: All of these things, much more amusing than my gum, iced pop, or sweatshirt. Even when I say mine aloud they sound so dull. The things in my life lack shimmer, as if reflected by the dull side of tin foil.

Back to the Kitchen though, my mind drifts their aimlessly. You would think, as quickly as my mind wanders, I would never have a chance to worry having thought past and through the worry. But my mind works much like a jammed printer, or no, better yet, a backed up assembly line, malfunctioning of sorts, yet still spewing its product forward, falling to the floor, a mess I want to, but cannot clean up! (I think of cherry-filling-filled Chocolates with a thin, chocolatey outer layer, after a while, Cherry filled chocolates set perfectly amid the white conveyor belt, thirteen or so inches apart, coming quickly. Then, and we never know what causes it, because the camera that is viewing this, the high tech expensive camera, is always a few inches off, not quite capturing the drama, and when it refocuses gets zoomed and turned: The back up has already occurred. (Break from that dribble) The kitchen is stuffy! The refrigerator opens cleanly without obstacle, but cabinets are cartoonish! From left to right, like an awkward line up in some dusty police station we have refridgerator- aged to yellow, slight outline stains where school papers were once pegged magnet to fridge; cabinets- chipped cream paint; below them counter top- that fake wood, light-grainy, that always chips to gray on the ends, like a linoleum that should have been used on the floor; the back drop-splattered with spaghetti sauce from two years ago, not so much stained as permanent; then, sink, which comes abruptly and doesn’t; excuse itself from the counter tops or the back drop, with that gray around the rubbery part that makes it water tight, caulking I believe, but that cool caulking that feels nice, little balls of it rolled on your fingertips.

The sink has a second side kick, like the Robin to its Batman, This sink is the bitch sink, even in trying to describe it, I lack the words! Then the counter turns, and I am talking “UPS truck trying to take a tight turn”, as opposed to those “Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous” turning counter tops, like Formula 1 on rails. It turns to nothing also, the end of the counter being there, but no side, you can actually look in the cabinet, see through and I am not a fan of that. There is a door way right their, and a nail or two, semi twisted that seems to catch only my favorite and very expensive clothing. I imagine the nails conversation to the other nail…but I will spare you that dribble.

Why the Kitchen though, the one thing that does it for me, besides such airy curtains, is the egg chair. It’s in the corner, sort of in front of the Fridge, but set back, as far as can be for this apartment kitchen. Instead of wooden chairs with the mock cushion, an eight inch piece of cardboard surrounded by fabric, there is an egg chair. Shaped like an egg with an oval cut out, speakers inside it, I spoon myself into the egg chair like I am adding back the hardboil, and trying to make it whole. When I sit in the chair, observing heaven’s curtains, my mind slows to a crawl.

I hear conversation in the other room, and even partake in a little of it, but for lack of grammatical iniquities, and shear laziness, I will paraphrase throughout my haughty diatribe. I may have just lied there, as I probably have no intention of ever getting to what others are speaking of. This is a truly selfish moment, one that may extend for pages, leaking in its paragraphs the ooze that creates life and destroys it. The ooze that ostensibly surrounds the kitchen sink, the one we call clean when bleach or Lysol touches it, but we know, even when touching it, cleaning our food and dishes in it, that we are only fooling ourselves. Against all odds we choose to ignore the simple truths, Plato’s Cave meets Joe’s Garage.

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