under the bridge
when I informed them that I wasn't cashflow positive and in fact more like someone approaching the antithesis of such a thing they were moderately reasonable and had agreed to offset what I owed them against my outstanding deposit which only seemed fair because the act of paying it the first time had nearly bankrupted me and it didn't seem right to be placed in some form of double jeopardy especially because all of my old scholarship money had had to go towards the price the first time and what I really wanted to do was put it aside and towards something a bit more glamorous or luxurious like a Le Crueset or a car or maybe even just a kitchen with a sink that worked properly and wasn't constantly being abused by twentysomethings with an underappreciation for the expense of good drain-o and who overestimated the digestive powers of metal piping which was of course exactly the type of thing we had been looking for when we went to view the new apartment which we had to pass under a bridge to get to and that was underwhelming owing to its proximity to a rather loud and nationally significant intersection of railway tracks and even the agent admitted that the sound of trains braking hard in the wee hours of the morning was something you just had to get used to but she made it sound like it was something you learned to love rather than something that drove you insane but on account of her having scheduled the viewing at the same time the current tennant was adamant about having blocked out from the options they sent her our confidence in the estate agent was quickly eroded so we had to find another place nearby that our friends had found but decided to pass on and the beds were really nice but my friend accurately pointed out the small defect in the property valuation which placed our projected costs at only a hair under a cool K despite the place lacking the amenities of a dining room table or even any dining room at all instead with the previous interior decorator opting for some recondite interpreation of the principles of geomancy which seemed to neglect the need for good feng shui and I was inclined to agree because the couch faced the table which was folded up in the corner under two mesmirizingly placed shelves that seemed to eliminate the possibility of being both average height and eating at the table without concussing one's self so we cast ourselves back out into the street and kept devising clever parameters for good flats when we were abruptly reminded of the time of year and economic conditions of the decade which had conspired to rob us of choice and affordability and that this was maybe more like some sort of funeral march and whatever flat we settled in would be our expensive sepulchral cages that cost us too much money and gave us too little room and he wisely pointed out that having two young people share an apartment where the bedrooms backed onto each other presented interesting social challenges in our continuing pursuit of some form of monogamous stability and I was inclined to agree though I have to admit that it hadn't been a central consideration for me until I realized the utility of peace and quiet without the threat of being roused by nocturnal amorousness but that surely wouldn't be a problem for an introverted PhD student who was too wrapped up in Capote to have even started to engage meaningfully with the world around him and who had for example neglected to inform himself that Kyiv had been bombed last week and maybe one-on-ones between autocrats in rustic ol' Alaska would prove woefully insufficient in extricating ourselves from the geopolitical situation of our day but this had little to do with my book or the matter of the red couch that weirdly faced the little dining room table and so I put it out of my mind in my hunt for something closer to £800 pcm that had a kitchen large enough for us to both cook without brushing elbows and it was also important for me that we had either an electric or induction hob which became an unexpected difference of opinion between us because he prefers gas hobs and that makes sense because he's more of a cook than me and likes the aesthetics of it whereas I was and am more of a culinary functionary who moves day to day with little fixation on variety or complexity and who happily ate pasta two meals a day as a kid for around seven years because something about the texture of boiled durum wheat coated in warm tomatoes had captured my imagination and refused to let go like there was some long fettucinistic tendril wrapped around my cerebrum and punished me for not eating more more more pasta but I guess that consistency is an attractive thing to experience in life and does it get more consistent than pasta and tomato sauce a contention that I will happily stand by even though inevitably there will be disagreements on the finer points of things such as well then how do you get your protein to which I respond I don't and this always shocks people but what do you expect from someone who hasn't been to a gym to do anything other than run or row for the last ten years and who never had muscle only scrawn and there's no need for protein when the most employed part of your body are probably your wrists and fingers because most of my calories are burnt typing and carpal tunnel is probably a bigger threat to me than scurvy so it doesn't matter that I skimp on all of the food groups so long as I invest in something comfortable for my wrists while I type this.