Saturday, July 09, 2005
Flaked
A note morning after
Not a lot of people know this but I have been yet again flatmate-less for about 4 months now. The quietness sometimes is just too loud I have to make as much noise as possible to not let it get to me. Even my medium size farting sounded deafening, but that is not my point.
I call it a flat because I don’t think we call them anything else here when it’s a tower block and you have to waddle up and down with your shopping from ASDA. Maybe the difference to an apartment is that apartments have lifts? Nicer paints? Too couldn’t-be-arsed to be educated on that matter but it is not Seri Maya or Armanee for sure.
Every now and then, they’ve decided that the two spare rooms I have in here can be used for locums to stay. They’ve agreed though that I will be in the know if that happens.
That night..
I was exhausted. Had my face in the pillow, didn’t bother to change the bluescrubs. Only put on a new pair just before leaving through theatre backdoor.
Was drifting away knowing not whether I was still in present, past or future.
A familiar sound of the door being unlocked startled me to get onto all fours and crawled and hobbled down my bed and again shuffling to the sides like a drunken crab to plaster my ear to the door.
My shorter haircut somehow got in the way of me breathing and I was very seduced to sneeze. My nostrils were extremely itchy. It was not easy.
There was definitely somebody in my flat.
I yohoooed and there was no reply. Again, still it was quiet, my heart beating fast and my whole body tranced into fright fight flight mode. My throat felt dry. I was thinking about the tennis racquet which was nowhere in sight, in the car boot maybe. Even tennis balls would be useful I thought. I snaked out of my room.
A head popped out of the loo ‘Helllooo!’ which for the love of all RotiBoy buns made me jump out of my skin and almost toppled from my ‘hungry tiger’ pose in bluescrubs. My head almost got decapitated from the small door opening.
She quickly apologized for making me jump and introduced herself. I got up from the floor.We cracked up.
She’s a little Indian doctor from Darlington, and has come for the interview for the next day and going to be staying for the night. Hmm I felt like a host all of a sudden and the whole responsibility that comes as a host very soon filled the air. Showed her the shower, the ironing board and the kitchen.
Roasted chicken drizzling in it’s own Mexican BBQ sauce barged into our olfactory endings . I put it in the oven just before ‘play dead’ on the bed. She complimented on the inviting smell. I quickly offered her dinner and she didn’t refuse. She looked like she needed it.
We chatted and cracked jokes about NHS. Her husband is also an anaesthetist and she spoke of him fondly. They have a 2 year old and she sounded proud of her boys.
I excused myself to go to ASDA as the fridge now looked a bit abandoned with just a thumb size lump of cheese and an iceberg lettuce wrapping left. She wanted to come along so we went. I was so surprised that we got on so well so quickly. Maybe because I haven’t had any human contact since deep sea diving in the bed since coming back from work.
We shopped and I learnt a little bit about her shopping habit. We returned home and she wanted to share the ice cream she bought on the way to here. It had a flake on.
I love chocolate flakes. It’s almost a clever way of having something so rich so lightly. Flakes, almost nothing wrong with having all 5 of them on one scoop of Haggen Daaz or B&J or any gelati near the Fontana de Trevi. I can tell she loved it too.
She asked me if I wanted the flake so I said ok. You know as to not offend her. She let me split it into halves and it broke one third to two third.
“Give me the bigger one. I haven’t had flakes for ages”.
She grabbed the bigger one from my left hand.
Errr, I smiled, ‘I am not big on flakes’. Was she what she said she was?
Not a lot of people know this but I have been yet again flatmate-less for about 4 months now. The quietness sometimes is just too loud I have to make as much noise as possible to not let it get to me. Even my medium size farting sounded deafening, but that is not my point.
I call it a flat because I don’t think we call them anything else here when it’s a tower block and you have to waddle up and down with your shopping from ASDA. Maybe the difference to an apartment is that apartments have lifts? Nicer paints? Too couldn’t-be-arsed to be educated on that matter but it is not Seri Maya or Armanee for sure.
Every now and then, they’ve decided that the two spare rooms I have in here can be used for locums to stay. They’ve agreed though that I will be in the know if that happens.
That night..
I was exhausted. Had my face in the pillow, didn’t bother to change the bluescrubs. Only put on a new pair just before leaving through theatre backdoor.
Was drifting away knowing not whether I was still in present, past or future.
A familiar sound of the door being unlocked startled me to get onto all fours and crawled and hobbled down my bed and again shuffling to the sides like a drunken crab to plaster my ear to the door.
My shorter haircut somehow got in the way of me breathing and I was very seduced to sneeze. My nostrils were extremely itchy. It was not easy.
There was definitely somebody in my flat.
I yohoooed and there was no reply. Again, still it was quiet, my heart beating fast and my whole body tranced into fright fight flight mode. My throat felt dry. I was thinking about the tennis racquet which was nowhere in sight, in the car boot maybe. Even tennis balls would be useful I thought. I snaked out of my room.
A head popped out of the loo ‘Helllooo!’ which for the love of all RotiBoy buns made me jump out of my skin and almost toppled from my ‘hungry tiger’ pose in bluescrubs. My head almost got decapitated from the small door opening.
She quickly apologized for making me jump and introduced herself. I got up from the floor.We cracked up.
She’s a little Indian doctor from Darlington, and has come for the interview for the next day and going to be staying for the night. Hmm I felt like a host all of a sudden and the whole responsibility that comes as a host very soon filled the air. Showed her the shower, the ironing board and the kitchen.
Roasted chicken drizzling in it’s own Mexican BBQ sauce barged into our olfactory endings . I put it in the oven just before ‘play dead’ on the bed. She complimented on the inviting smell. I quickly offered her dinner and she didn’t refuse. She looked like she needed it.
We chatted and cracked jokes about NHS. Her husband is also an anaesthetist and she spoke of him fondly. They have a 2 year old and she sounded proud of her boys.
I excused myself to go to ASDA as the fridge now looked a bit abandoned with just a thumb size lump of cheese and an iceberg lettuce wrapping left. She wanted to come along so we went. I was so surprised that we got on so well so quickly. Maybe because I haven’t had any human contact since deep sea diving in the bed since coming back from work.
We shopped and I learnt a little bit about her shopping habit. We returned home and she wanted to share the ice cream she bought on the way to here. It had a flake on.
I love chocolate flakes. It’s almost a clever way of having something so rich so lightly. Flakes, almost nothing wrong with having all 5 of them on one scoop of Haggen Daaz or B&J or any gelati near the Fontana de Trevi. I can tell she loved it too.
She asked me if I wanted the flake so I said ok. You know as to not offend her. She let me split it into halves and it broke one third to two third.
“Give me the bigger one. I haven’t had flakes for ages”.
She grabbed the bigger one from my left hand.
Errr, I smiled, ‘I am not big on flakes’. Was she what she said she was?
