Something Exceptional

 

Something exceptional happened. It all started last night. I was on the phone with my sister while I was cooking dinner, a kind of unofficial tradition that we have on random days of the week. While we were talking, I saw from my peripheral vision, a shadow looming over me. I stopped what I was doing and looked around. I didn't see anything. Once more the shadow appeared. This time I looked up towards the light directly above me and found a flying insect fluttering between me and the ceiling. Its movements were antagonistic and menacing. When it saw me notice it, it initiated threatening knife-swipe maneuvers, dive-bombing toward my face and eyes. I shooed it away and it perched itself on a wall behind me. I must have made gaah and humph sounds as I did this because my sister asked me what was going on.

"Some damn bug is in here, flying in my fucking face," I said.

"What kind of bug?" she wanted to know.

Now that it had stopped and parked itself along the wall I was able to see it clearly. 

"A moth."

"Yeah they live all year," she started. "They eat your clothes."

I thought it was my imagination, but I could have sworn I heard someone whisper, I eat ass, too. But I was wearing AirPods and they do weird things sometimes with the noise cancellation and I thought maybe Instagram or TickTock was on in the background and some meme came through at low volume.

"Did you hear that?" I asked.

"Hear what?"

"Never mind," I said. 

"So what are you gonna do?"

"What do you mean?"

"About the moth. You gonna kill it?"

"No, I don't kill bugs when I find them in my apartment - I just put them outside."

The pot with the quinoa in it was bubbling, causing the lid to dance all around the top of the pot like a loose manhole cover. I lowered the heat a bit and gave the quinoa a stir. The sink was still half full of dishes and there were things I needed to wash in order to have dinner. I told my sister I had to go and then cleaned up and served myself dinner. After eating I watched some more videos about Stable Diffusion, practiced for my upcoming German naturalization exam and went to bed.

This morning I woke up just before 7:00. For some reason I've forgotten how to sleep in later than that, no matter what time I go to bed. The night before last I had a nightmare that my CEO had messaged me on Slack telling me that he thinks I should resign. He also proceeded to draw graphic pencil sketches of me in compromising positions while wreathed in fluffy, bubble-shaped clouds and sent cryptic messages implying that if I didn't quit something bad might happen to me. I'll save relaying that dream for another day.

I spent a few hours in bed reading and then got up and made breakfast. The moth was still in my kitchen, but in another location. Have you ever seen how moths look when they're on a wall? There's something unusual about the angle - it isn't parallel with the plane of the wall. They kind of protrude up off of it like they're trying to assert dominance, like a gorilla beating its chest. This motherfucker, I thought. Momentarily I dreamt of murdering it. 

No, let me eat breakfast, then I'll catch it and throw it out.

So, I had breakfast. For a few hours thereafter I got sucked into reading more about Stable Diffusion and practiced some of the techniques I'd learned. Then I spoke to Asia and played a game or two or three or five of Magic. It was already close to 1:00 and I hadn't even done yoga. As to avoid letting the day run away from me, I rolled out the yoga mat and assumed the positions. After 40-something minutes I was done, and starving. Sometimes hunger creeps up on me and I go from zero to 100 and find myself ravenous, practically shaking. This was one of those occasions. I'm guessing nearly an hour of physical exertion can amplify this effect. My feet carried me quickly to the kitchen where I mixed a few spoonfuls of protein powder into a glass and chugged it down to hold me over before I could cook some lunch. With the glass still to my mouth, I looked over out of the corner of my eye and saw the moth was still in the same place. Still giving me that same god damned look. Once I finish this drink I'll get his ass out of here, I thought.

But when I finished I realized he was just too high for me to catch. I'd need a stool or a chair or something. So I went into the living room and got the little table Asia had made at her recent woodworking class. Perfect. Let me just get lunch going, I thought. I can multitask. So I turned on the stove, poured some olive oil in the pan, added some pepper and garlic powder, some chili flakes and oregano, and I opened the cabinet to get a dry glass to trap the moth in. In a few seconds he was in the glass, under which I slid a piece of paper I grabbed from off the counter. Easy. I took a few steps to the door, opened it, and stepped into the hallway to let him out. 

As soon as I uncovered the glass the moth swirled out with a fury I presume few probably have witnessed. He came straight at me, cutting hateful spirals like a cyclone. We all know float like a butterfly sting like a bee, but we don't know swarm malevolently like a moth. This thing was wicked. I swung the piece of paper I had in my hand but it was a joke to the moth. I think I even heard it laugh. It kept jabbing at me undeterred. I cried out in shock and a dab of spit spurted from my moth as I swung again this time with both the glass and the paper, but he dodged and weaved and evaded me like a pro. At this point, because of the way I'd swung while leaning away from the moth, I was off balance and my foot slipped against my doormat. Luckily, somehow I was able to catch hold of the door knob and sort of re-stabilize, but to do so I had to rock forward to counteract my backward momentum. Doing so righted me, but at the cost of slamming the door closed behind me as I lurched forward. A thing you need to know about my door, is that it locks automatically when it closes.

No. No, no no no no no no nnooooo. 

I tried the door hoping maybe it hadn't closed all the way. I was still in the denial stage of grief. I heard the door slam shut. I knew damn well it was locked. It was. Frantically, still thick in the denial phase, I shimmied the piece of paper I had into the space between the door and the frame hoping that if I angled it just right it would pop open like it does in the movies. I tried this until I was huffing and puffing and straining and sweating and stinking, but I still couldn't blow the house in. I was locked out. In my pajamas, standing there with no shoes, no phone, no wallet and no keys. Then I realized the oven was on. 

Fuck. Was this a dream? This had to be a dream, right? I tried to wake up but nothing happened. Then, from behind the door I heard someone whisper I told you: I eat ass. I put my ear against the door to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. 

"What?" I asked.

Are you deaf, faggot? I know your dumbass is locked out, about to burn the house down, looking like a derelict ass bum, wearing dirty pajamas you haven't washed in two weeks, probably got shit stains in yo undies, but did I fucking stutter? Damn, you smell like shit. That stank is coming straight through the door. I can smell it over this garlic olive oil you got on a boil. It's smoking, you know that right? This shit is gonna be up in flames in a quick minute.

I hated this moth with a passion, but he was right. I needed to do something. I started banging on my neighbor's door. The problem was, this was my neighbor's back door and I knew it. It was possible no one would hear me, but I couldn't easily go around to the front of the house given I had no shoes and I wasn't dressed. Luckily someone was home. My neighbor opened and saw me and I must have looked like a derelict ass bum wearing dirty pajamas, and I knew it.

"I'm sorry. I live here," I said. He looked at me with a slight suspicion. "I locked myself out." He looked down at the cup I had on the floor and the piece of paper in it, then he looked down at my socks that I'd spilled a few drops of olive oil on.

"How did you manage to do that?" he asked, clearly still debating whether or not my story was true.

"Well, it's funny," I said, "I was trying to get a bug out of my apartment." As the words came out I realized how completely ridiculous what I was saying sounded. "You know, it probably seems crazy, but I don't like killing them. I just put them outside. When I put this one out, it flew in my face and I lost my balance and pulled the door handle shut." Jesus this story sounded more pathetic the more I went on. "My phone is inside. Can you call a locksmith for me?" I could see my credibility still wasn't entirely established. The overgrown, sweaty beard hanging off my face and chin wasn't doing me any favors here. "Please, the oven is on."

"The oven is on?" he asked, his eyes widening.

Now he was ready to believe me. Once his safety was on the line he became wonderfully cooperative. He invited me in, gave me his phone, Googled the nearest locksmith. The only problem was my German. I didn't know how to say I locked myself out. Unfortunately for the both of us, my neighbor was French. His German was only somewhat better than my own. Together we managed to explain the situation to the locksmith who knew only a little bit of English. I gave him the address and he said for a small fee of 150€ he would be right over...in about 45 minutes.

"That's too long," I explained, "it's kind of an emergency. I got locked out while the oven was on." 

He didn't understand this part though. Which is understandable. These are specialized words outside the script for this kind of call. Sure, words like door, keys, lock, home, intervals of time, basic English sentence structure, all of these were fine, but kitchen equipment? What does that have to do with locksmithing? In a moment of dialectical desperation, I fumbled lexically through the scant inventory of words in my mind and uttered the following linguistic abomination:

Uhh, die Offnen, uhh, es ist...on.

"Was?" asked the locksmith, rightly baffled.

"Der Ofen," my neighbor interjected.

"Ah so, der Ofen! Mein Gott. Okay, okay, 10 minutes, okay?"

We did it! I raised my arm to give my neighbor a high five, but this caused a foul smell to spill out from my armpit, making his nose wrinkle and his face sour. I let my arm fall slowly back to its side. His young daughter entered the room and began showing me her Guinea pigs, talking to me in French, German and English, and robbed me in a 3-card Monty scam while her father and I nervously waited to smell smoke and see flames springing from my door. After what felt like 30 minutes, the man called to let us know he was outside. I ran down in my socks to let him in. He asked me if the door was closed or locked.

Beide? I said, which means both in German. 

He smirked in a way that told me he knew I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about. This made me question whether my door was actually locked. Which made me question whether I've been leaving my apartment unlocked for the 5 years I've been living here. I guess I was about to find out.

When we got to my door, he took out a spray can and spritzed a bit of oil into the door frame before removing what looked like a thin piece of sandpaper from his toolbag. Just like in some Hollywood heist movie, he skillfully slid the paper in between the door frame and, in one quick sliding motion, he popped the door right open. I couldn't believe it. This man could rob anyone he wanted to. Anyone who didn't have their door locked, that is. On the phone earlier, in broken German I'd said I lost my key, which I said because these were the words I knew to communicate that I was locked out. Now, having seen me, and having smelled me, and having realized I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about, he asked me if I had the key. I told him I did.

"On the phone you said you lost it," he said, smirking again.

"Yeah, I said that because I didn't know how to say I was locked out. The key is here, but I was out there," I said, as I ran inside to get the smoking pan off the stove.

"Okay, then it will only be 80€ since we don't need to change the lock."

80€ to slide a piece of paper in a slot, huh? I guess locksmiths can charge these rates. What are you gonna do, get the door open yourself? So I handed him his payment and bid him farewell. It felt unreal to be back in the apartment after having been completely shut out. A prisoner in my wintry Berlin hallway. Calamity had been avoided. The house didn't burn down. A deep sense of relief and release washed over me and I appreciated the simple fact that I was on the right side of my closed door. What a difference a couple of inches makes. I got to thinking. A door is just a wall that opens, isn't it? It's the semi-permeable membrane of a wall, and only those with the right shaped key, or a can of oil and a flat sheet of paper can enter and exit. Then I heard it.

Hey, stupid bitch. Like how I ate your 80€? That was me. I did that. That's not all I'm gonna eat. I'm gonna eat your ass. Your whole ass.

A rage lit up inside me. My eyes scanned the room, hunting for the sight of him, but I didn't see him. I spun around, looked up, down, behind surfaces, started moving things around on the counter.

You ain't gonna find me there, you stanky ass bitch. You stupit. Stop it. I'm in the hallway.

I darted towards the door and just as I was about to grab the handle I paused. Waaaiitt a minute. This moth really thinks I'm dumb. He was trying to get me to spend another 80 doing the same damned thing. No. Not this time. This time I put my keys and my phone in my pocket, and I put on my shoes. I usually don't harm bugs. I don't like killing them. I just put them outside.

You soft. I heard you tell your sister and your neighbor you don't kill bugs. But you know what, I kill people. I kill them for fun. Because I can. Especially soft ass bitches like you.

As I opened the door I couldn't help but smile. It seemed this moth didn't understand what an exception was. I was going to show him something. Something exceptional.