The House was a Mess

The house really wasn't a house-- and it sure as hell wasn't a home.
Nearly eighty years old, the walls were solid cement. The ceilings were mostly dry-wall and all of the electrical outlets were attached to the walls with pipes coming from them to conceal the wires. Nearly all of the switch plates were cracked, broken, or just gone-- and half the light switches sparked when the electricity was on. The bedroom was lower than the rest of the house and had the only normal wall in the apartment. It probably used to be a garage. The apartments were originally built for the workers of the cement plant across the street.

Of the two front windows, one was cracked and the other was a collage of cardboard, trash bags and tape. I had to shove through the front door because it's off two of its hinges. There are piles of clothes and such covering most of the floor, little alleyways meandering through them and framing the bare, stained mattress on the floor. Several crates are arrayed around the mattress; some organized, with gaudy junk and cheap nick-nacks set upon them,others with papers carelessly tossed upon them all helter-skelter.

The trash in the kitchen lines the wall knee high. Dishes overflow the sink and counter. An extension cord runs in through the grease-stained kitchen window supplying power to the fridge and only lamp. There's a puddle on the floor, coming from the leaky refrigerator. Inside the refrigerator is a wet box of crackers, a fermented quart of milk and a discolored pond at the bottom with its countless bodies of drowned roaches.

In the bedroom, once again a pathway carves its course through the trash, clothes, and used dishes while framing the mattress, upon which lays a plate of marijuana and some mirrors with razors slumbering in a scatter of white powder.