Brandon
Brandon is my flatmate. I met him through his friend Adam.
I met Adam first and he was pretty cool. Adam would have moved into the room I was renting but he had just moved in with some other people the week before and was too poor to move again at such short notice. Adam's girlfriend is a pornstar. Adam is clean. Adam is interestingly verbose if not actually well spoken.
Brandon is not.
When Adam introduced us, Brandon was very quiet. Also, he had holes in his socks which I ignored even though it set off alarms in my head.
But I let Brandon move in because he paid in advance and I was too lazy to find anyone else. Serves me right.
Because Brandon is not the kind of person you want to live with. He's perpetually broke. So even though he doesn't miss rent payments, he doesn't help out with household supplies. Instead, he informs me when we've run out of trash bags and alike.
Brandon has ADHD. He leaves bottles open. He doesn't flatten his cardboard boxes for recycling. He never cleans out his ashtray on his own, he waits to be told. He makes plans but he never follows through.
Brandon's life is a dead end. He works as a movie projectionist which has no future and no hope of promotion, not that he'd want to do anything else. He has no marketable skills.
Brandon paints and he collects knickknacks which he swears he will one day sell, real soon. He never does. He brings home framed pictures that he never puts up. He stocks books he never reads. He has no girlfriend. It is quite possible that he has never had one in all of his 38 years on Earth because he quite literally exudes unapologetic awkwardness. He makes people uncomfortable, like a clock whose tick is just slightly off beat. Spend enough time with him and you'll start feeling bad in an inexplicable way.
But all these faults would be excusable had he been blessed with a pleasant personality, one that infects other people and causes good will in his fellow human beings. He does not. He complains a lot. He is rough. He talks at great speed for obnoxious lengths of time. He has an unjustified sense of self-entitlement. He says bad things about other people behind their backs. Yes, even Adam who found, and helped him move into, this apartment which he loves.
And today, Brandon nearly set the place on fire because he forgot that he was toasting bread in our gas oven. Black plumes of smoke rose from the back of the stove. Good thing I was home.
The whole place smells like burned toast.
It's been a long hard day for me. So I sit here and I think to myself, "I wish he'd get mad at me somehow and leave. That or he dies. Yes. If he died, that would be perfect. I don't want to kill him. I don't wish he was dead. I'm just saying that if he did die, that would just be fine."
I met Adam first and he was pretty cool. Adam would have moved into the room I was renting but he had just moved in with some other people the week before and was too poor to move again at such short notice. Adam's girlfriend is a pornstar. Adam is clean. Adam is interestingly verbose if not actually well spoken.
Brandon is not.
When Adam introduced us, Brandon was very quiet. Also, he had holes in his socks which I ignored even though it set off alarms in my head.
But I let Brandon move in because he paid in advance and I was too lazy to find anyone else. Serves me right.
Because Brandon is not the kind of person you want to live with. He's perpetually broke. So even though he doesn't miss rent payments, he doesn't help out with household supplies. Instead, he informs me when we've run out of trash bags and alike.
Brandon has ADHD. He leaves bottles open. He doesn't flatten his cardboard boxes for recycling. He never cleans out his ashtray on his own, he waits to be told. He makes plans but he never follows through.
Brandon's life is a dead end. He works as a movie projectionist which has no future and no hope of promotion, not that he'd want to do anything else. He has no marketable skills.
Brandon paints and he collects knickknacks which he swears he will one day sell, real soon. He never does. He brings home framed pictures that he never puts up. He stocks books he never reads. He has no girlfriend. It is quite possible that he has never had one in all of his 38 years on Earth because he quite literally exudes unapologetic awkwardness. He makes people uncomfortable, like a clock whose tick is just slightly off beat. Spend enough time with him and you'll start feeling bad in an inexplicable way.
But all these faults would be excusable had he been blessed with a pleasant personality, one that infects other people and causes good will in his fellow human beings. He does not. He complains a lot. He is rough. He talks at great speed for obnoxious lengths of time. He has an unjustified sense of self-entitlement. He says bad things about other people behind their backs. Yes, even Adam who found, and helped him move into, this apartment which he loves.
And today, Brandon nearly set the place on fire because he forgot that he was toasting bread in our gas oven. Black plumes of smoke rose from the back of the stove. Good thing I was home.
The whole place smells like burned toast.
It's been a long hard day for me. So I sit here and I think to myself, "I wish he'd get mad at me somehow and leave. That or he dies. Yes. If he died, that would be perfect. I don't want to kill him. I don't wish he was dead. I'm just saying that if he did die, that would just be fine."