by Josh Young
The carpet was old and kind of
a sand color, though could have
easily been white at one time. It
was stiff in places and had cigarette
burns in other places, even though
there was no smell of smoke in the
apartment.
The carpet boundaries gave way to
wood panel walls, reminiscent of
a 1960s den with a man smoking
a pipe in a cardigan sweater reading
life magazine in the middle.
Downstairs the landlady’s husband
lay dying. I could hear his laborious
coughs all the way upstairs. I think
he died right under me one night.
It was a small apartment, but cheap
and between working ten hours a day
I would only need it to sleep in. It
would do for the time being.
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