He called me one Tuesday morning, the way he always did when he wanted something done.
“Sweetheart, there’s a place available on Fifth Street,” he said. “It’s filthy, abandoned but if you want it, it’s yours.”
Filthy didn’t even come close.
The moment I stepped inside, I almost walked straight back out. Trash had been piling up for who knows how long—ripped bags, soggy cardboard, cracked plates stacked into unstable towers. In one corner sat a mound of yellowed newspapers that were no longer paper at all, just brittle dust. The walls were stained an unnatural color, something no one should ever paint a room. A thick gray film coated everything, as if time itself had given up on the place.
And the cockroaches.
Huge. Some as long as my thumb. Bigger, even. When I flipped on the light, they scattered like I was the intruder.
Cobwebs hung from ceiling to floor like decaying curtains. In one corner there was a nest of something—what exactly, I didn’t want to know. And the smell… even now, I struggle to describe it without feeling sick. Heavy. Rotten. Like garbage that had decomposed, then decomposed again.