Alex sat on his leather love seat, staring out the window of his second story apartment. From where he was sitting, the only view allowed out of the windows was of the monotonous gray rain clouds threatening to make his bike ride to work a wet one.
Alex’s place was one of converted old houses so common in midtown Sacramento. It was probably a very nice house at some point in its history, but has been remodeled and added on to who knows how many times. Currently, the entire bottom floor was now a small store - liquor, sodas, snacks - the usual. However, going around the corner of N and 24th streets where the store was located, you’d find a steep narrow staircase hidden in the back. These stairs were the gateway to Alex’s private world.
I was a large world, as far as Midtown apartments go, but it was an empty world. Empty and cold. Alex had made the trip south to Sacramento from Seattle over 6 months ago with hardly a couple of days change of clothes and a laptop. Everything else had been sold off before boarding the Alaskan Airlines flight to his new home.
In the 6 months Alex had been in Sacramento, he’d managed to buy only this single love seat as furniture. That, and an odd assortment of cups, bowls, plates, pans and silverware were all that made the large apartment even appear to be a residence. There was not a shred of carpeting on the floors. Instead, every room was wall to wall linoleum.
The entire apartment was marked by the complete lack of order. You can’t have order in the absence of things. No, in fact, the only order was in the kitchen, among the few utensils, the sparsely occupied cupboards. Two plates, two bowls and four cups. Two knives, two forks and four spoons.
Alex sat on his leather love seat, staring out the window of his second story apartment. Two arms, two legs, four limbs.
It always came in twos and fours.
