A Place to Live

My last housemate, the one with the cat left to live with his wife two weeks ago, passing his room to a father of one. 

Now I am living with an Iranian, a 30-something Malay father, and his 10 year old son. I would not delve into details of how each person made me feel, but we are a strange combination. A few months before my last housemate left, the washing machine broke down. Nobody seems to be interested in repairing the washing machine, so now it just stays there in the balcony, gaining metaphorical dust, and a very thin layer of literal dust as well. 

The Iranian housemate has just gotten back from Iran, and he stuffed the fridge with food from Iran, both in the freezer and in the bottom compartment, leaving no space for everything else. 

Last time he was with his friend, a guy called Yahweh or something (I didn’t pay attention because I just don’t care) in the living room while both are shirtless, chit chatting, he insisted that I should take something they were eating. They were eating strange nuts, still in the shell. 

“What are those?” I asked politely. My housemate turned to Yahweh for an answer “It’s aiman nuts.”, said Yahweh. 

My housemate repeated the answer “Yeah, aiman nuts.”

“Err, you mean almond?”

“Yeah, aiman.”

He handed me a fistful of those nuts. “Thanks.” I muttered.

While I cracked open the shell, I could confirm it was almond. Never did I know Iranians buy almonds in their shells. Yeah, new knowledge.

The father of one and his son are acting like ghosts in the background. You could hear voices, but not their physical apparitions. If not for their shoes, I could not tell there exist two other persons in our house. 

The singularity of the parents, seeming to raise his kid alone, leaves too much for speculations. My first guess was that he just lost his wife, perhaps in a divorce, of perhaps in death, and now he couldn’t afford to live in a proper house, thus he rents a room. 

I pretty much don’t have any second guess, so that’s it. 

We seem to mind our own business so far, and so far so good. Since I couldn’t really talk to them or see them, I could only make up their characteristics and social background from their shoes and their toiletries in the bathroom. The son only seems to have a pair of slippers, while his father, who I assume to be working in a uniformed body because he has a pair of boots, has like 10 pairs of different assortments of footwear. The father seems to be taking a good care of himself, with too many shampoos, skincare products and body washes in the bathroom. I on the other hand, have three – a bottle of top-to-toe Bad Lab shampoo, a bottle of Antabax antibacterial shower gel and a tube of Fresh & White toothpaste. 

The father keeps his son in his room, never lets him out, which gets me into questioning the quality of upbringing the son is being subjected into. I really pity the kid, but at the same time I really appreciate it if I don’t have to see him running around the house. 

Being almost 27 and still have to live around strange people and under strange circumstances like this kind of, well, strange. You know, I started to think how blissful it is to live alone, but I don’t have the money and the courage as well, so I’m stuck with this situation unless there’s divine intervention. To be frank, I stayed solely because of the Unifi because I'm shallow liddat. If anything changes soon, I'll let you know.