A rainy cold night in a metropolitan city. In an apartment complex there is a window which is dark among all the other warmly lit ones. There is a plant in the window, a small cactus which is thriving. Behind the cactus there are dark curtains framing the window nicely. The lights from the outside city shine into the window, but can’t penetrate the darkness behind it. Deeper still, the room behind is a one room apartment with a bed, some posters and a small kitchenette on the side. Nobody has been here for a while.
The fridge hums to itself and inside are some eggs which are going bad, half a carton of milk that’s definitely gone out of date and a lot of packages of sliced ham. The packages were a present to the occupant of the apartment for a joke that was supposedly so hammy that it won an award. The freezer contains some leftovers from a cookout that happened a few weeks ago, some ice cubes and some bags of frozen vegetables.
The bedspread is a muted gray, the pillow is worn from many nights of tossing and turning. The mattress is a soft one, chosen because the owner didn’t like the harder one. On the nightstand beside the bed is a book entitled “101 Unsolved Mysteries” in truth, only 45 of those mysteries are truly unsolved, but the occupant didn’t really care about it, it was good reading at the end of the day.
Inside the nightstand drawer there are a few condoms, some lube and a sex toy, nothing fancy, but gets the job done. In the bookcase at the side of the bed there’s an assortment of books ranging from science fiction to horror to documentaries and cheap romance novels. The only kind of book you wouldn’t find would be a detective novel. There’s also an old photo album, filled with pictures that are both recent and really old ones from the owners childhood. On a shelf next to the bookcase are some awards, trophies, certificates, all designating a victory over something.
In the wardrobe, there are a few suits and some underwear along with a couple of shirts. The owner never did care much for fashion and it shows. The combined bath and shower room is decorated with a carpet that absorbs water quite easily. A design on the carpet meant a lot to the owner once, but it’s meaning faded over time. The mirror above the sink has seen the owner in various states of joy, happiness, apathy and anger. Now it only mirrors an empty and dark room.
Outside the bathroom, the silence in the small apartment is deafening, only the loudest of the outside noises penetrate the walls in a muted way, but mostly this place is very still as time goes on by silently. The reality of this apartment and the items within is that they are just objects to anyone but their owner. But, since their owner is dead, neither you nor I will ever know who they were.