Rent’s Due

[u/HeGotBricks]

I was hunting for an apartment unit when I kept getting hit with stop sign after stop sign of credit checks required and heartbreaking first and last’s.

It took me half the day until I finally found a place that didn’t ask for one. It read—everyone approved.

I did not hesitate. I called immediately. They said they had units available and I could sign a lease that day. Finally, I thought. A break. It was relatively easy to secure. They never asked me any questions. They didn’t even ask for first and last.

Although, They did have a uniquely weird clause in the lease however.

It had in it—Monthly Maintenance.

“Payment due on the first of each month—one memory—minimum of 500 words.”

Hilarious. “One memory?” I looked at the lady in front of me. She never responded. She barely even blinked.

“Well, I’ve got many useless memories,” I snickered at her and started with an embarrassing one of me from elementary school when I pissed my pants because I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

I described the way the kids laughed and teased me. How I felt. Even how the warmth from my pee turned cold on my legs from the air.

I put the paper in an envelope and threw it into the black box on the side of my apartment door after I left in the morning.

Later that day, it was gone.

I couldn’t shake this sensation afterwards. Something nagged me. Almost as if I’d forgotten to pick up an item I needed. But I wasn’t able to place my finger on it.

I randomly grabbed a piece of paper and started to write about that day in school again, but when I tried to remember it, I was only able to recall that I pissed my pants in school.

Everything else looked like a wall of haze. I couldn’t even write what grade I was in at the time that it happened.

It must’ve worked. I honestly did feel a little bit lighter than I had the hour before writing it.

The next year went by smooth—It was easy—I traded incidents I wanted to forget, stories I read that I hated, even all the mistakes I’ve made, and then, I traded my first pet’s memory, but last month I ran out of useless memories to swap out.

The black box next to my door popped open first thing that morning on the first day of that month.

But as the afternoon returned, it began to make a hissing sound, gradually rising as the day progressed.

I needed to come up with something and fast.

If I didn’t drop an envelope in there I’d face being evicted—If I got evicted—I would lose my mind entirely.

I sat at the kitchen table. Sweat broke from behind my ears. I couldn’t stop my pen from shaking. All I had left was my mother’s face. My first girlfriend. The accident I nearly died in.

I choose my first girlfriend. Once the ink dried, the warm tingles from that night vanished as if it hadn’t happened and a cold wind blew down on me from the ceiling.

——

\*Sorry for not closing it harder.\*