trigger warning. descriptive detail of self-mutilation, mental illness and suicide.
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Pia tries his best to encourage the electric kettle to hurry up, but the seconds tick by like hours. Instead, the machine sings a hymn of taunt; taking all the time it desires to make Pia understand that he is technology's bitch and not the other way around. All Pia wants—no, needs—is a cup of tea that doesn't have the same temperature as a corpse. Unfortunately for him, it takes three to four minutes to achieve said temperature and he does not have that type of patience today.
It's nothing extravagant, it's tea—he's not even thirsty, it's habitual. [Some people like to pray before they eat, Pia likes to drink tea when he watches TV at night]. And at this point, he has nothing better to do other than to binge-watch tedious nineties sitcoms, all with the same laughing track chiming at each blunder like the hourly cuckoo of a clock.
He plops a teabag into a charcoal mug mindlessly, scattering the single teaspoon of sugar at the bottom like dust against the sides of the mug, almost like a asteroid crashing into the earth. Sugar spatters over the mug's insides, tacking to the sides like dew. He pushes himself up onto the counter, sitting back with his head against the cabinet.
The wind hollers outside, banging with clenched fists against the windowpanes, screeching like a slasher victim bleeding out. The windows are closed away from the apartment by thick, ceiling-to-floor black curtains, crusting against an entire wall of the living room like a scab. Somehow, the coldness seems to seep through the enclosure, exposing Pia to goosebumps.
He pries a glimpse of the television, angling his body peculiarly cyborg-like. He is far too afraid he might miss Monica and Chandler's secret relationship develop—something he's been monitoring closely like a nurse to an ICU patient.
Pia has had a lifelong fondness towards love [oh, woe is him], albeit his recent abuse of sexuality.
He loves the idea of giving everything he has to someone, even though what he has, is not even adequate enough for himself. He loves the idea of spending such an undetermined amount of time with someone that they can each be on their own mission in the same room where the silence is like orchestrated choruses. He loves the idea of embarking on spontaneous dates, pretending that the world means nothing more than an enlarged map and all they have to do, is paint their footprints over the paper.
Pia wants to stay up late and talk to the love of his life. He wants to hear childhood narratives of great tyranny and revolting victories. He wants to hear their worst fears, the sweet thoughts they cannot share because it keeps them up at night. Their 2 a.m. thoughts. He wants to ask the person questions, even if it meant the irksome questions like how was your day? or the what is your favorite color? version thereof.
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He loves the idea of good, consensual, Hedonic sex. Where he can take the time to languidly kiss the love of his life without feeling obligated to switch the lights off. Pia loves cuddling and Eskimo kisses and holding hands and the entire enchilada of devoting his life to someone else.
Pia can fantasize about the love of his life all he wants, because no matter what he thinks about, he always follows the breadcrumbs back to Roman Mariano. He feels as if he will never get over Roman, albeit their lack of exclusivity. Albeit his lack of homosexuality.
Pia doesn't want to be in a relationship with a guy, but the more he thinks about it, the less foreign the idea becomes.
He sighs, fixating his attention back to the blaring television. He missed Monica and Chandler's first romantic encounter, immediately disappointed by his distraction.
He turns back to the kettle, water rupturing in bubbles as it boils. Steam pumps from the kettle's mouth like smoke from a factory's skyline, releasing cloud-like entities as amorphous as bats flying in the dark night sky.
Pia's attention is immediately distraught, almost as much as the bubbling surface of the water inside the kettle, when the apartment's phone rings. With a heavy sigh, he slides himself from the kitchen's counter, missing the kettle's tick to indicate that it finished boiling.
The apartment's phone leaches on the wall behind the front door. It is a sulphuric, outdated landline attached to a box of numbers with a thin, ossified chord the same consistency of a twig, but the same shape as a spring. Pia rarely answers the foreign structure, leaving it for his mother—a call on the landline is like a knock on their door.
"Hello?" He grouses when he puts the phone to his ear. A soft buzz crinkles over the line, indicating the phone's stoic age.
No vocal sound rings from the other side of the phone, however. The call would've spawned unsettling goosebumps down his spine if he didn't experience similar calls as frequently. The tenants tend to press everyone's button once their keys go missing or they forgot to open the gate to exit the building.
His finger hovers above the vermillion button, but he shrugs to himself and rams his finger into it. It's not as if he's opening the gate for Michael Myers—a hobo is the worst case scenario. He returns to his tea station, gushing the tea bag with steaming water and cold milk. He administers the taste of his work quickly, but on the last second, realizes that it is far too hot for regular human ingestion when the lava-water skims over his tongue like a flat rock being thrown over a river.
He swears, all the pretty Afrikaans words rupturing as if he's stepping on a packet of crisps, putting the cup down before he drops it. He sucks air over the burn wounds inside his mouth, pouring a tad bit more milk.
Just as he readies himself for a second sip—mentally preparing himself to go through the trauma again—the door cries with a noise he rarely heard before. A knock on the front door. The only person who knocks, is Uriah, his mother's boss who lives in the building, but that's because he's a mannered, proper person. Pia's building friends are all but mannered—they barge in like a tsunami and cause havoc within the walls of his flat until they sweep Pia out to go indulge in teenage catastrophe; they are savages.
Pia did not anticipate visitors. Could it be the unknown visitor he allowed in? Did his mother forget her keys when she whirled out of the apartment this morning?