Vile Bodies @ 2008-10-09 on 2:10 a.m.

Damian once joked that i am by far too practical, or just too lazy, to ever be a murderder. Just think of the blood, he teased, blood is worse than wine when it comes to fabric, and nearly impossible to scour out of wooden surfaces. And if all my neighbours started randomly dying, i would begin to think that something was amiss. Mind, if i were to commit a murder this apartment wouldn't be a bad place for it; the question would be, of whom. Certainly not my collocataire, a lapsed Catholic and Communist, who has yet kept a certain combative tone in his conversation as well as his politics -and to say nothing of that Irish lilt in his voice to match the rolling Quebecois, that i first heard on the answering machine saying, "S'il vous plait, laissez une message dé-tai-lé; please leave a detailed message." i'd put Michael to work looking up classifieds, with a list of features i wanted out of an apartment, and from a very short list we put it to chance and a recording designed to fend off the uninterested and uninteresting.

Manuela, for good measure, had frowned with disapproval as i prattled to a machine about my love of books, contained messiness, a fondness of cats over people, and uncertain financial future, but the next day, having toured one terrible tenement and another that was habited by two friendly flatmates but was situated all the way up in Rosemont, on a particularly Bloqiste part of Rue de Lorimier, we walked our weary way back in search of supper instead. And at Le Mangoustan, Jim called and the next morning i coughed up the second week of September.

The room is white, with a curtain over the bed like those Grand Guignol dramas where people are being murdered in their beds -and nobody will ever know, until an unsuspecting chamber maid (complete with a frilly white apron) comes in to change the sheets. The room, also, is lopsided. Most of the older buildings are in this city, especially ones with wooden floors, and this building used to be a bank, with high windows and ceilings, and a teller's desk for my table that folds out. Alas, there is no money hidden, though i've yet to check the floorboards. But i did find a bottles of -unopened!- Grand Marnier in the stately (and lopsided) chest of drawers.

Nor are there bodies, only the ghosts of former hopes and convictions, and souvenirs to places either he or i have been to -Vienna, Beijing, Seoul, Delhi, the Montreal Expo, New York. That's where i'm currently figuring out when to leave for. Obviously there's a part that says AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!, meaning take the 16h45 bus on Friday and arriving at midnight, and catching the 1h37 to Princeton. However, this would mean: missing my last class, which in theory i don't mind doing but i'm a big nerd and like that class. And, as romantic as it sounds to take the last train towards a lover

1) i'm not a romantic and

2) Penn Station isn't the most convivial place, especially at night. It would also mean missing Andrew's party, which i'd promised Cory to attend, before i found out about this midnight-train business. Damned hindsight.

All these practicalities. All these vile bodies.