Even professionals need roommates in this town if they want to live anywhere close to the action. He’s been gone a month and now I need a new one, but only freaks are responding. You’d think with the rent I’m charging they’d self-select, but everybody thinks they can afford it. Yesterday I came across the neatly stacked packet of little pink phone message notes he left behind. They read like a short novel of the life I should be living, instead of interviewing future deadbeats. I could kill him. Each page announces my entire name—first name, middle name and last—plus the date and precise time a call came, in meticulous block letters. He’s moved in with my ex-girlfriend. He’s taken the job I was after. The notes are in chronological order, beginning with the first invitation to interview with the firm I should be working for now. Please return call about Friday availability, it says, Sorry about your flu. Rich with invention, the notes allude to illnesses I never had, come from people I’ve never met but nevertheless disappointed, and detail several ways I let my girlfriend down without knowing. They fell like confetti around the apartment as I tore through the stack, looking for evidence of where I could find the sonofabitch now and wreak a little justice. He’s already left the job I never got. My ex left town without a forwarding address. And then the one from my daughter stopped me dead, and another, and another—trouble at school, more trouble, wishes she lived closer, why haven’t I called, am I OK, tell me more about the guy who keeps answering the phone, will I still be able to visit on Saturday, a Saturday three weeks ago. And now she’s not answering her phone.
Copyright © May 08, 2007 David Hodges
Very Short Novels 
7 comments
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May 8, 2007 at 9:51 am
Anonymous
Ooh, creepy in a cool sort of way!
Thanks, Anonymous! Is this Creme de la Blog again, forgetting to identify, or someone who wishes to remain anonymous?
–David
May 9, 2007 at 2:24 am
Wizzer
As usual every line adds a thought / question / challenge. I love the assumption that freaks are not wealthy – “with the rent I’m charging they’d self-select”. That one phrase lead my mind off on a thousand tangents.
How many times in life do we base prejudices on some deep rooted, ingrained belief and where did that belief originate? Experience? parental prejudice? TV? …
You miss nothing, Wizzer. Thank you for reading so carefully and taking the time to comment so often!
–David
May 10, 2007 at 6:22 am
verbivore
Quite terrifying and very punchy. And I’m with Wizzer on liking how you turn the cultural bias on its head. Clearly the first roommate interviewed so well and then of course he turns out to be a very dangerous freak. Just a question – did you know where it was going or did the writing take you there?
Thank you, verbivore. Yes, apparently that lesson was lost on our narrator. To your question, I started out with the notes and the cast of three; the daughter was a late addition.
–David
May 10, 2007 at 2:08 pm
litlove
I can see why that daughter’s there, though, because she distills all his losses and focuses them on her absence right here in the present. Of all the ghosts that haunt this story, she becomes the most painfully present in her absence, and that ends your tale beautifully in the immediacy of his confusion and loss.
You’re so right, Litlove, and not just about the immediacy of the present. Because she might not be quite lost yet, she propels the tale into the future.
–David
May 10, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Miriam
David, I’m your anonymous commenter. I keep forgetting to identify (sorry, I’m used to commenting on Blogger!).
Thank you, Miriam!
–David
May 12, 2007 at 8:03 pm
loricat
Sometimes more than others, I wonder what triggers these stories — this one is wonderfully creepy…but I wonder where it came from?
I imagine you in a dollar store, browsing the stationery supplies, eavesdropping on an innocuous conversation about a roommate in the next aisle, when you look down at your hand to find one of those pink pads, and your brain starts making connections…
At least that’s what I hoped happened — I’d hate for any of it to have come from experience. :p
That’s sweet, Loricat. Thank you. Let’s just say my brain makes connections.
–David
June 22, 2007 at 7:24 pm
tbd
Here.
I found it – my favorite.
Whew – evokes a million feelings in 299 words. At first it just seems sad and depressing, but it makes you think and find that it’s bittersweet in an odd way. Kind of like those occasional country songs that get it right.
My romantic sensibilities make me want to find this man his very own Romance Novel Heroine.
Thanks, tbd, and welcome to Very Short Novels. How many did you read before you found your favorite?
–David