A man knocked on the door to comment on what we were eating for dinner, ‘got cheese on that’, he said, ‘can I have some?’ We were eating spaghetti bolognese, and then rethinking our table’s proximity to the windows. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street we were watching reality TV one summer night, the smell of cigarette smoke. It wasn’t hot enough to need the windows open. I turned my head, saw fat fingers wriggling through our letterbox as though taunting. We let our dog do the talking and ran to the bedroom. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street, we took hot showers and choked on mould. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street my partner went for a walk in the pitch-black after an argument and returned with a stranger. Said she’d begged for help to get away from her husband, and I hoped my tears weren’t obvious. When the police came we all sat on the floor cross-legged in a semi-circle; a fucked-up storytime. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street, I was in my pink dressing gown, only answered the door because I was expecting post. Two cops at the door with scrunched-up mouths, asking me where a man I’d never heard of was. I said I didn’t know him and they stared. When they left, I realised I’d forgotten to ask how they knew my name. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street, I stayed in my pink dressing gown all day until I learnt how to exist comfortably without external pressure. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street, we rescued fish, hamsters, snails, roly poly bugs that unfurled in the damp of our bathroom. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street, I faced my fear of spiders by choosing to let one stay. Clementina, I named her; a fearsome, lovely creature. When months later she fell to the ground, her strength lost, we picked her up on a piece of A4 printer paper and laid her to rest on our dining table. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street, passion flowers crept over the wall dropping tasteless fruit. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street, I was so nervous going into a threesome that I asked to slap the guy round the face. Neither the face-slap nor the threesome had much of an impact. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street I chopped pineapples, taking the unsliceable parts to my mouth; juice all over my face. My friend called this fruit bukkake but whenever I became sticky after that I said fruitkkake in my head and smiled to myself, full of sweetness. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street we compromised on public sex by using our garden, duvet spread out across the concrete. It was so uncomfortable, slab’s edge in my back, that I had to flash a tit to the sky or perhaps the upstairs neighbour just to come. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street we found a way to live with the expansive wall sticker that wouldn’t come off by adding in our own in-joke slogans between the lines of text with a Sharpie. How we lived, we laughed, we loved. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street, we heard the first laugh of the baby who in another life we got to keep. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street, our landlady thought she could use YouTube to fix anything. For hours we holed ourselves up in our bedroom with snacks (corner shop samosas, curly Hot Cheetos, chocolate chip cookies), and passed our dog an endless stream of treats to make up for the invasion. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street we carved pumpkins and avoided tricks; trips to the shop for more and more sweets. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street, we said we’d stay for two years. We stayed for another seven. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street, we were stuck. Back when we lived in the flat that faced the street, we were free.
Amber Ken writes from the very bottom of the UK, by the sea. Before taking her as-of-writing new pen name, she had work in Ellipsis Zine, Riggwelter Press, among others. Don’t ask her about her interest in watching sumo wrestling (please do).