not to look back as I made my way into Mike’s apartment. Their conversation didn’t begin again until they heard my footsteps on the creaking stairway. Sweat was beading on my forehead and dampening my back, but I breathed a sigh of relief. I got off easy.

The walls were smudged with dirt from what was probably several generations of children’s hands and cigarette smoke. The door to room 217 stood closed and silent at the end of the hall, the white paint faded and peeling as entropy took its unrelenting toll. I stood before the door for a moment, taking it in. I tried to imagine what it must be like for someone like Mike to come home to this every day, to have his world be a tiny bubble of decaying finiteness. Memories of past lives came to mind, and the drudgery I experienced, but always...

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