The Sublet
by Heather Hoskeer

My husband and I reside in a space, which is sort of a euphemism for hovel not, by any means a fancy way to say apartment. Of course, the word space gives the impression of well, roominess and I do not want to give that impression. Think crawl space, or storage space. Now you’ve got it. This space is on the third and last floor of an old and crumbling building in Williamsburg. It is a parcel of small, oddly shaped rooms facing the street. There is a tiny kitchen that appears to have been thrown together as an afterthought sometime during WWII. The bathroom, in the same manner, is just big enough to contain a narrow shower and a toilet and is capped by an ancient sky light that leaks rain and pigeon feathers. The living room also serves as dining room and walk-in closet. The bedroom, off the living room most likely was a closet. It fits a bed and has no door, well, not in the traditional sense of the word (which would imply something that opens and closes).

It is clear that two people were never intended to live here, no matter how much they love each other. This is a bachelor’s pad. An eccentric bachelor’s pad and even that eccentric bachelor for whom it was intended was not meant to spend a whole lot of time here. Not surprisingly, we are subletting from that eccentric bachelor, a jazz musician who goes by several names and sleeps here only when something better does not come up. At the moment, something much better has come up for Jack, Joe, Bob, whatever his name is.

The ridiculously tiny size of this space is incongruous with the building, which is actually quite large and seemingly spacious. Our only neighbors in this giant building are a couple who rent the two other apartments and have annexed them into one large apartment. They also added a deck to one of the apartments. They have a car, a dog and a house in the Catskills. If I think about our living arrangement and our neighbors living arrangement for too long, my head starts to throb.

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