Student Accommodation

I got a bed at a slaughterhouse for twenty a week. It is a pretty good deal, despite the smell and the noises.

My bed is one of sixteen stacked one on top of another in a steel cage inside a defunct chimney. I am on level eight, and I have to climb a ladder to get there. I never drink anything two hours before going to bed so I don’t have to climb down to go to the bathroom.

The weekly charge includes the blanket, but I have to wash it myself. Luckily, they let us use the facilities that the butchers use. I am not sure if they are called butchers, though, and I have never spoken to any of them on account that they are a little intimidating.

The other fifteen beds are all students except one person, a grey-haired writer, Mr. Perkins. He always climbs down in his pajamas at six in the morning, climbs back up fifteen minutes later, and then climbs down again in his suit and hat a little later. I don’t get up until around seven, but I wake up each time somebody uses the ladder because the whole tower shakes.

Mr. Perkins also rents an office above the bathrooms at the slaughterhouse, and he spends his days typing. It’s a little old fashioned, but I guess he sells his writing more expensive because it is typed up. Some people pay more for that on account of nostalgia.

There is also Mr. Patel, the manager of the slaughterhouse. He is friends with Mr. Perkins, the writer. He’s nice enough, and way better than the butchers. They are tall and broad, they must weigh a ton and probably eat a lot too. They wear burlap sacks for masks, and aprons that look like they were made from shower curtains. They carry big knives and cleavers. They walk around in their platform boots on account of the blood they have to tread. Mr. Patel just wears white slacks and a dark shirt.

Posted by: Paweł Kowaluk