The apartment

   Arthur just couldn’t keep himself from doing a party. He always had to have one. It didn’t matter if it was only him and a few people or with a large crowd. Somehow, he needed that at least twice a week and if holidays happened to be occurring, the number grew considerably. Once, he even drank every single night of one week. The amazing part of it all was that the following week he looked good as new, as if nothing had happened.

 Having him as a roommate was particularly difficult. The parties were one big part of it but also his lack of order and cleanliness. Every time he cooked something, the kitchen seemed to have exploded: every pan and pot was in the wrong cabinet, there was rice all over the floor and even small puddles of water or other liquids on the floor. He would also get ketchup on the walls, and would never, even by an act of kindness, get the trash out to the street.

 Normally, a person like that would have been thrown out of an apartment after a couple of mishaps, but there was an important detail to be considered: the two bedroom apartment, which had a large living room, a balcony, a very big bathroom and comfortable rooms, was owned by Arthur’s father, who also happened to be one of the richest men in his country. The man was very powerful and it wasn’t a surprise he had properties a little bit everywhere.

 Anyhow, that’s how I met Arthur. I remember having arrived to the city, from my country and after a twelve-hour flight. I had browsed online for days until I had finally found a proper place to stay in. The apartment looked incredible and the price was just insane. At first, I thought there had been a mistake but, after I decided to write, they confirmed that the price of the room I wanted was correct. Immediately, I booked the room, excited to have found such a bargain.

 When I arrived, a month later, the first person I met was not Arthur but his father. I had no idea of who he was back then and even now I don’t really now the extent of his power and wealth. After all, Arthur and I are not from the same country and his father is not very well known to me. However, he was very kind, greeting me as I arrived. He made a brief tour of the apartment and then asked to have a chat after signing all the papers.

 He wanted me to understand something: his son was going to leave there too and that’s why the rent of my room was so cheap. I didn’t understand at first but he said I would I due time. He only asked patience of me and swore I would be glad I had decided to live there. At first, I thought he was just exaggerating. I was very wrong!

 Arthur had grown to be a very tall guy. His feet were big and his hands too. His head was a bit smaller compared to the rest of his body and that made him look weird at first. Of course, the first few days were just perfect. The apartment was not only huge and very well located; it was also very modern and had everything one would need, even a maid that would come in every Thursday to clean up. She was a very chatty woman and it was nice to talk to her when she came.

 The first party occurred just after the first month had gone bye. It was a big shock to see at least twenty people, all over the living room, drinking beers and watching some show on the TV screen. Hours later, they would turn the music up and start dancing and jumping and being all crazy. The rooms were separated from the living room by a corridor, which could be closed by a door. And if you also closed the door of your room, the noise wasn’t too bad.

 But the noise factor was only a part of it all. It was much more annoying to be walking to the kitchen the next day and having to avoid stepping on someone that was sleeping on the floor or on food or on the various puddles of beer. Of course, when they all went home, they would never clean anything up. Everything would remain as it was, as if a bomb had gone of in the middle of the living room and also the bathroom. It was just too disgusting.

 I called his father the first time. I was furious, telling him about all the vomit there was on the bathroom floor and about the unconscious bodies on the living room and the smells and the amount of dirty dishes on the kitchen sink. But he just calmed me down by saying he would send Minerva, the maid, to clean up and that everything would be fine. Then, I decided not to day a word because I thought it was a once in a year thing, once every six months at least.

 Minerva came and cleaned everything in less than an hour. It was as if she was magical. And she didn’t say anything about all the disgusting things around. I kept complaining to her but she only nodded and said “Yeah”, which should have been a red flag but I just didn’t see it. When I wanted to comment on the mess with Arthur, he argued he was too busy and would just leave the apartment or get locked in his room.

 I had never been the type to ask fro friendships or to want to have a huge bond with the people I lived with. I just don’t think it’s necessary. But I was willing to try if it meant getting sure that bomb didn’t go off again. However, Arthur didn’t let me. We spoke very few words and that was during my whole stay there, which lasted a full year.

 Arthur seemed like a very private person but then he would bring two buddies to drink beer and watch a game in the living room. And then they would start smoking pot and then some girls would arrive and then more people and suddenly he would have a party on his hands that he even wasn’t around to handle. It was wasn’t uncommon to arrive late at the apartment and finding a party where the person that lived there appeared to be missing. People he invited, of course, didn’t care. But it was stressful not to find him when the mess was going out of control.

 Neighbors didn’t complain for two reasons: the first one was the apartment was actually sound proof. So it didn’t really matter how loud the parties could get, the people on the same floor or on the one below (as it was a penthouse) could only hear a very soft hum. That was it. The other reason was that they know who was the owner of the apartment and it was a general consensus that they didn’t want problem which someone like that.

 So complaining was not a popular thing. And those parties and that mess happened every single week of the year except for two glorious one in March, when Arthur was forced by his dad to visit his family back home. It was the only time Arthur shared a bit of his life, only to complain about it. When he left, the calm in the apartment was almost overwhelming but it was welcomed.

 I could sleep a lot better and could use the TV without him been there. I could keep everything the way I liked it and even Minerva told me that I should leave her more to clean. I enjoy those two weeks thoroughly but was always afraid a party would appear out of nowhere because that’s how it worked. I went out a couple of days and arrived late and it was so strange to get there and seeing no drunk people on the floor and having a clean bathroom to pee in before going to bed.

 Of course, that didn’t last long. Arthur came back and the following months were just as horrible as the rest. I endured because my parents were really glad I didn’t have to spend so much money on a place. I also didn’t want to break the contract, which stated that if I left before the last specified date, I would not get my deposit, which I needed. So I had to endure by going out of that place every day of that summer.

 I went to the beach almost every day. I even made a couple of friends there. But then I would have to go back to the mess. I reminded myself that it was only for a few more months and then it would all be done. I would go back home and I wouldn’t have to care about cleaning floors or doing dishes that hadn’t been used by me.

 The last day, we had a conversation. It was very surreal. He said he was very sorry about how everything had been between us and regarding the apartment. It was obvious his father or someone had talked to him. Or maybe it was him, who had had a revelation. But, honestly, I didn’t care. My luggage was ready at the door and I ordered a taxi on my phone as he spoke. We just shook hands and I forgot all about him, until today.

Your so-called "freedom"

   I don’t get it. I simply don’t get why people transform into humans with traces of swine characteristics once they move out of their homes, far away from the eyes and supervision of their family. It’s beyond me why people, many times, simply choose not to learn anything and decide to do things as they please, as if that had ever worked. Maybe I am obsessed with order and with everything being spotless and clean but I’d rather be obsessed that way than not caring about anything, not even your own hygiene. If these people don’t even know how to clean their own room, how are they taking care of their own bodies every day, if they are that is? It disgusts me a bit to even think about it because to me being clean is not a trace of character but a basic human instinct that you should know to survive.

 Apparently, it is not as I thought. I have lived with my parents for a long time and that has formed a certain image in my head of how people usually live. I have gone to other houses, of course, but always of people I’m related to or friends who also live with their parents, so it’s not really a clear picture. I have even dated people that live alone but I have to be honest and say I never pay attention to details in those moments so, maybe they were clean and maybe they were not. That certainly something to think about because if I decided to date someone permanently, I would certainly decide such a thing based on the amount of order and cleanliness he has with himself and everything he owns.

Is that an exaggeration? I don’t think so. I mean, it’s not the worst thing to prefer dating someone that is clean and knows how to behave like a human being. I have to confess I hate people that eat and live all their plates in the sink. And they pile up and the smell keeps getting worse and its like they’re waiting for someone else do clean them for them and it’s simply pathetic. I just don’t like that because I think it shows what kind of person you are and that’s certainly not the kind of person I would like to be involved with. Is it insane that I’m the opposite kind of person? The kind of person that cleans his mess just seconds after creating it and the kind of person that gets sick if they happen to find lots of hairs from strangers when cleaning the floors? Is that so bad?

 I don’t think so, of course, but people will always exist that happen to love living in a certain degree of anarchy because it makes them feels free. I have no idea why freedom is always related to a mess, to chaos, because freedom is not chaos but respect. Or that’s what I think. When you are free, you can do what you want, that’s true. But the only way to properly use freedom is if you combine it with respect and use it wisely instead of taking advantage of it as if you were a child, as if everything that has the capacity to worry you doesn’t exist any more. Freedom is not dirt. I refuse to even think about it like that.

 However, people still think that living alone, the “big liberation”, is al about doing whatever you want to do without any excuses. So waking up late, showering becomes optional, eating whatever you want whenever you want it, having no responsibilities or respect for anything beyond your own body and not even thinking about any consequence because that is just not cool. All of that is implanted in our minds when education at home has been all but good or even remotely decent. People whose parents have explained things to them have a tendency to be better socially simply because they know why doing certain things is socially unacceptable or should simply be avoided.

 But let’s say all of that is ok, all of that is perfect if you leave by yourself. You can be a pig if you want, when you leave alone. But the truth is that when most people leave their homes, they leave it to live with others. No one has the money to live really alone until they have a proper job and so on. And seeing many students depend on their parents to live away from home, the obvious answer is to live with roommates. And that’s when everything we have been talking about comes back and acquires importance. Because when you share a space with others, it’s not all about you. You share a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom and maybe other common areas. True, your room is your own but that’s it.

 So most people have filthy rooms and live like pigs when being students but they try to behave like decent human beings outside of it. Right? Well, wrong. Because many people, all of those we have been talking about, they simply think that the world and the people in it that are their same age are just as filthy as them. So the plates and pans start to pile up, and so does the laundry and everything begins to become as filthy as if they were living alone. Why? Because freedom means chaos for them and not respect. They have no respect for themselves or for others, so they do thinks as they think everyone in their situation does.

 Of course, in order to have a nice life living with roommates, people simply do not say a word. Maybe they like living like that or maybe they simply do not want to quarrel with anyone about anything. I personally do not know which one of those solutions is the worst. Not saying anything and submitting yourself to the lives of others is beyond me, it’s something I simply cannot understand. Especially when you have a stake your own health because, at the end of the day, that’s what we are talking about. It’s about our life and having a nice space to share with other people and not simply about living and going forward like a mule. If we do that, we might reach a point when there are no more roads to keep walking on.

 All of this, some might think, is an exaggeration. And maybe it is, maybe we won’t die if we clean our bodies in a filthy shower or if we use the greasy pans that who knows how many others have used in the past. Maybe those are not lethal things and we can survive a small mess. But what that would entail would be a world where everything is a mess because people have stopped caring about the fact that we always live in community, we rarely live truly alone and there is no correct way to ignore that. What if bus drivers stopped doing their routes as they are supposed to? Would that be tolerable? What if airlines only had flights whenever they wanted or felt like it? I bet many people wouldn’t be exactly happy about it or the world would be a lazy ball of filthy and disgusting people.

 To my knowledge, we haven’t reached that stage and I personally hope we never do. Because this world is ours, for every single one of us and we cannot live thinking it’s all about us because it isn’t. Each person in this world is not important and that a truth we are never told or reminded enough. Each one of us, in our own, is simply not important enough. But as a group, as communities and as a species, we are important because of the simplicity of numbers and the importance those numbers have when affecting other numbers like the amount of trees, of drinkable water, of animals in the world and so on. When we live together, we share and respect others as we consider them equals; we gain more than we lose. And that’s the best for our growth as human beings.

 It is because we learn that by helping others we are actually helping ourselves. Those dishes that are left in the kitchen for hours or days, if we clean them just after we’re finished, we are letting someone else use them and that person would likely do the same so at dinner there will be clean plates to eat properly. If you clean the bathroom after you use it, people will eventually notice and, no matter if it is because of guilt or because they have learned, they will begin to clean everything too and the chances to have an infection or something nasty get into you will be as low as they can be. Of course, that’s the optimal way of living.

 So why not living like we care about others and ourselves? Why not living alone as if we were still living with our families? The world doesn’t just get different because our personal situation changes. The world does not care about a single organism but about the group, the communities. So let’s live, let’s enjoy ourselves and let’s do that by respecting others and letting them know how much we care about them and about the world as such. You will forgive my rant, my incessant way of pushing these truths down everyone’s throat but I do believe in the importance of respect, because it brings and order to our lives than lives for far longer that any of us would ever live. Because respect is freedom.