Monday, July 21, 2008

death by apartment.

I thought my roommate was dead today.
He left his door closed; he never does that.

But he did today and as the hours passed, and I walked by his room for the 4th, 8th and 13th time, I was pretty certain he had died in his sleep.

My first approach to dealing with this was to text him since I could not bring myself to simply knock on the door and check firsthand.
No, no, that was much too scary.
I sent a text.
“Are you at work?”

No response. About an hour passed.

Now my fear expanded. No way was I going to check his room. No way. I wondered if it would anger people that I texted him and didn’t check right away. I began to panic. I texted again.

“Are you dead? Your door is closed. Let me know.”

No response.

I began to really panic. I mean, it really set in. Oh my god, my roommate is dead and I’m working out in the next room like a weirdo slash total dick.

Multiple scenes flashed before me. His mother coming to gather his personal belongings, casting a cold stare my way… the way of the irresponsible roommate who should have known her son was dead and alone in that room. The funeral, where hundreds of friends and family see me, shake their head in disgust, and ignore my attempts at conversation… shun me… my other roommates, grossed and weirded out by the events, never acting the same way towards me again… his room just sitting there, empty and filled with death…. ugh. Just awful.

Imagined, but so real.

I am not a person who is afraid of death. To be honest, I rarely ever think of it. But when I do, it’s usually because I think someone I know is dead.

I’ve woken people up from all too quiet slumber to make sure they are still living. I’ve begged friends to contact me when they get home after a late night out. I have put drunk friends to bed and stayed up making sure they don’t turn on their backs or suddenly stop breathing. I’m terrified of it.

It’s my one of my worst fears that people around me die.

One of my other roommates came home around 9pm and I told him the other one never came out of his room all day.

“He never closes his door!” I said.
“So go in there.” He said.
“No you have to; you’re a man.” I said, trying to justify it.

I held my breath and anxiety swept over me, flushing out any other feeling than pure, horrible, crippling fear that my roommate was dead and it was all my fault.

He went in and our roommate wasn’t dead.

He wasn’t even there.


Two hours later I got a text: “I’m in CO. Left in morning. Don’t u remember that I told you that last nite!?”

I instantly remembered him telling me the night before and felt pretty stupid. Pretty stupid but relieved. I let the weird fear of people dying dominate my whole day and erase any reason or sensibility about the whole thing.

But I’m really glad he’s not dead, because MAN would that funeral had been rough. Cold stares? No thanks.

I’ve got to find something else to be terrify me. Maybe I’ll pick bats. Clowns? That’s funnier. I pick them.

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