writing

stories/essays on the left, poems on the right. have fun reading my edgy bullshit!

untitled no. 1

The apartments at 24 Dell Lane, Chicago were— to say the least— shitty. A thin layer of grime covered the floors, no matter how hard the tenants scrubbed. or what blend of toxic chemicals they used. The walls of every room in the building (aside from the landlord's office) was painted a hideous shade beige-ish green, which, no matter the amount of complaints, the landlord refused to change. The rooms were fated by some accursed deity to always smell faintly of soggy carpet and cat urine, (although pets of any and all varieties were strictly forbidden) as it always has been.

The landlord was a small, stout, caucasian man, who dressed himself strictly in gray sweatpants and stained wife-beaters. He had a short layer of graying stubble sprouting from his neck and chin. He shaved every other morning, but it grew back at comedic pace. Wherever he went, he carried a small wooden ball, which he twirled through his pudgy fingers with an ease that could only be achieved through years of nervous fidgeting. He had a strange habit— more of a tic, really— of fluttering his eyelashes whenever he spoke to someone. Maybe it was the sweat dripping down his face getting into his eyes. Either way, he had a short temper, and a would evict on shorter notice. Yet Aspen had managed to live there his whole life.

It was in these apartments that Aspen was raised. It was in these apartments— with their rotting floors and traces of mold—that Aspen grew up. They grew with him. It was in these apartments that he took his first steps, that his dad buzzed his hair every Sunday, that he put his first A+ on the fridge. It was in these apartments that he brought home his first girlfriend. It was in these apartments that he met the woman from CPS for the first time. He was shaped by them, and likewise, they were shaped by him. They left their marks on eachother, they each left their scars. The holes in the wall, the notch in the brow. The building carried the memories which he could not— the memories of which he had tried so hard to forget. The vivid memories of his father. The blurred memories of his mother.

Aspen was the one to burn them down.

He watched as the building blazed in the night. There were no sirens, not anymore. No one would care. The dead couldn't care. The rotted wood was finally being put to rest, the mold and the piss and the rats finally being cleaned, killed for good. The smell of nearly expired gasoline wafted through the air, filling his nostrils. A soft smile sat on his face. He took pleasure in this act.