The Point of it All

Kris looked around her empty apartment from the moldy, dank futon where she sat, trying not to glance down at her arms. She stifled a morbid laugh as she recalled the "Squirrel Conundrum" she had come up with back in her college days.

"You see so many squirrels around," she had mused. "Why don't you ever see any dead squirrels?"

"I see plenty," some jerk added, trying to be difficult. "In the middle of the road."

"No, you see hundreds scampering everywhere all fucking day -- and not just them, birds and stuff, too. Where are the ones that die of old age? It's not like you can just walk through the forest and there are squirrel and bird carcasses all over the ground."
Yeah, but now she knew what the squirrels had known; you don't just walk around until you keel over suddenly on your dying day. It's just like one of those weird life things, like putting your hand on the phone one second before it rings. Yeah, it was sort of like that.

She shifted in her seat as the daily shouts from the family downstairs got louder and more frantic and more uncomfortable to try to ignore. Something metallic clanged off the floor, and then something with a lot of parts shattered all over something else, and the man in the argument was not very happy about that one bit. Kris looked around her room again, trying to take her mind off everything. Futon still present; sink, check; bleach under the sink, check; Chinese food containers, present; a small pile of white clothes in the corner, also present. Television, real bed, rug, healthy food: all missing and unaccounted for. She scanned the bare white room again, her eyes unconsciously searching for anything interesting to stop on, dive into, spring back to life while perusing, but nothing happened. The thought of getting up to throw away the containers crossed her mind, but what was the point, really?

She chuckled again, this time at her mess, hearing her mother's voice echoing in her ears: "Better to be white than wrong." It was like her mother's mantra or something. It wasn't a racist remark, but it was very much like her cookie-cutter mother to utter a fossilized phrase like that without considering modern-day ramifications. As a cleaning lady, Kris' childhood house had always been stocked with sufficient cleaners and mops and rubber gloves. Most of these traits just graduated into Kris' adult dwelling and now served as a twisted homage to her mother's obsession for cleanliness in this sparse apartment that still managed to look unkempt and ever decaying.

Her mother's old adage of a dwelling being a reflection of its owner didn't escape Kris, as her own body felt as if it were decomposing right around her. Her arms were pale but splotchy, and she didn't fancy looking in the mirror much anymore, because what was the point of it all, really? All her life, she had worked so hard to become something, someone who did more than just exist and walk the path that everyone did, and where had that gotten her? Alone in a bleached-white room with a neat pile of trash and a clean stack of clothes.

She had long since thrown most everything else out, it was just too depressing. She'd always been like that. After dating a guy for all four years of high school, she suddenly cut off all contact the last month before graduation, knowing that he was going away to college. She was never sure if she did it to ease the pain for him or herself, but she stealthily changed her routine that whole last month. She avoided the path by his locker, ate lunch in the lounge instead of the cafeteria, and even skipped Visual Arts 100 -- the class they shared -- resulting in her oddly hopeful-looking D+. But a D+ is still passing, isn't it? She wasn't even very good at the class in the first eight months of it, but her hippie free-spirited Art teacher was going through a divorce, took pity on Kris, and gave her that D+.

Kris stood up, suddenly. She wasn't going to wait out the end here in her stupid apartment. She started down the hall and towards the front doors and 1-B, the room with the thundering fight had occurred. It was silent there now, except for some hushed shuffling around. The front doors of the apartment complex let in the first sting of a fall breeze that Kris wasn't expecting, but she wasn't about to waste any time going upstairs to get a dumb sweater. The crazy guy who lived above her in 3-F started towards her in his thick tweed jacket. She watched him look over at her with his old, pitying eyes. He was an old Irish Catholic widower who pitied everyone who wasn't him.

"Found him yet?" he asked.
"Yeah. He was right were I left him," she said sarcastically. She knew was talking about Jesus. He was always talking about Jesus, and she had just blatantly blasphemed to his face, but he didn't catch it because he decided she hadn't gotten what he meant.
"Finally quiet in there," he said, nodding towards the apartment by the front doors. "I've been praying for that Mr. Mitchell ever since this morning."

Kris wanted to jump towards him and shout that he shouldn't be prayed for and he shouldn't be forgiven. She wanted to scream that someone can't be so evil and cruel and be forgiven when he's just going to do it again, but what was the point of it all? Plus, it hurt too much to jump, hurt too much to yell, and hurt too much to start another fight with this harmless zealot. Their awkward silence was cut-off by the opening of the apartment doors and a middle-aged woman emerged, whose eyes and hair deceived her and made her look much older than she really was. She was holding the hand of a too-small girl in a handmade dress with a fresh tear near where the cloth arm met the torso. The old man attempted to stifle a gasp, and sensing his reaction, the tiny girl recited apologetically, "I fell."
Her mother gave a weak smile and looked at Kris.

"The, uh, light bulb burned out inside her room, so it's dark, you know? I nearly stubbed my toe into the wall!" She exclaimed, extending her leg to show the made-up wound, only to reveal a real bruise climbing up her shin. She drew it back quickly, and started towards the front door, producing a dirty cloth and holding it to the girl's eye. The girl jumped back in pain at the pressure, and her mom lifted the child and drew into a tight hug. As they walked away, Kris heard the girl say, "I'm sorry I said anything, Mommy. I'll be a good girl from now on." The front door slammed shut with another breeze as the two left the complex with no purse, no bags, no extra clothes, sure to return later that night. Maybe after the shouting man awoke and left for another bar. Like his wife and daughter, the man never dared leave for good. Apparently, it wasn't any fun to pass out face-up on the floor of your cheap apartment with no family to beat up. Kris knew what she had to do.

There wasn't much time left, and she had almost made it out clean, but she never did buy into much of that religion or karma crap, so what was the point of it all to reach the finale without ever rising above the plateau that was her life?

It was time to end it all on a note that would at least help someone out. Go out with another D+.

With blatant disregard for the old man as an eyewitness, she made sure that family's door was accidentally left unlocked, and quickly made her way up to her apartment. Dusk had made its mark on her white apartment, and she marched right into it all, past the Chinese food, past the clothes, past the doors below the sink.

Right before the finale, Kris gave an amused scoff remembering those old commercials she used to watch with her mother that played before feminism dictated that they be more politically correct. The commercials with the cartoon Drain-O that dove heroically into the pipes and magically unclogged all the gross hair and food and stuff in the drain and made the housewife and the kids smile.

Kris didn't even bother closing her front door as she started back down the hallway towards apartment 1-B.