July 2000

I awoke to dripping coming from behind the wall. I lay on my back with my eyes closed listening to the steady rhythm of droplets. I felt tired still. When I opened my eyes I saw that my cat was at the foot of my bed, turned away from me, sleeping. Pepper. I remembered that she had been there the night before, and was impressed that she hadn't moved at all during the night. (Indeed I haven't seen her since the late 80s.) I gazed up at the ceiling and it was stained and damp. The wall at my head looked warped, and there was a concavity to my right. I sat up to examine it more closely. Pieces of the wall had broken around the indentation. It looked like a crude mosaic created by the impact of someone's head. The situation was worsening too. Something about my apartment caught my attention then. Things had been moved. My desk had been cleared of my computer, and this I found disassembled and lying in the opposite corner on the floor. Several other things had been relocated as well, seemingly away from the damp wall. Getting out of bed, I found a note on the desk from my landlord. They had indeed been in to move my things. I felt a little embarrassed for having slept through it, and wondered why I hadn't been awakened by what surely must have been a good deal of sound and motion. Still, where were they now? The dripping persisted, and I sought the source of it, testing the carpet with my foot for dampness. The carpet was puffy and loose - more so than I had remembered it - but it was dry. I went into the short hall that connects to the bathroom, and the ceiling there was very wet, and drooped obviously. In fact, by opening the door I disturbed the atmosphere just enough to loosen the ceiling completely, and it fell about my neck and shoulders like a soggy cloth. I leaned forward into the adjoining closet, shrugging it off. Now it lay in a puddle in the hallway, and I stepped gingerly over it, back into the main room. My girlfriend was present now, she had been busy in the kitchen. She seemed distracted. She was wearing gray leggings, I noticed, and I felt suddenly affectionate. I crouched behind her and hugged her at the calves, but she resisted and said, "We have to get ready."