Sugababes, "Killer" (2002)

These few weeks, while I'm traveling, Beardsley is staying in my apartment. Since he is moving to England at the start of the new year, he had the shippers come and get his stuff a couple of weeks ago. His apartment is thus empty save for a suitcase or two, and, imagining how depressing that must be, I said to him that he could just crash at my apartment. "The timing is perfect," I said. "I'll be out of the country anyway."

Of course, after I had this fit of uncharacteristic generosity, I was all, like, oh no, now I have to clean the place before I leave and put away the embarrassing sex toys. But I did and I kid, and was glad that I offered. Beardsley came over the day before I left on my travels for me to show him the workings of my apartment. He was visibly grateful to be out of his own vacant flat, a reminder of the limbo he was in. I took him through all the quirks of the place in precise, technical language ("you have to, like, jiggle the thingamajug on the toilet").

There was one thing I forgot to mention, though. The air in my place, it would appear, is in a delicate, precarious balance. If you open one door, another one literally closes. Indeed, if a slight breeze swells, it's often enough to slam a door, or at least make it open and creak. I guess the apartment is some sort of sucking black hole vacuum. Apt, really.

When I first moved in, this was rather disconcerting. Especially the day when I was in the shower. Perhaps the hot water made the air rise and, I dunno, created a little tornado, but the effect was that the bathroom door, which was slightly ajar, creaked ominously and then swung ever more open. "Oh God, mother, blood!" Under the hot jets, soap in my eyes, I was convinced that someone had broken into my apartment was now ready to stab me into a bloody pulp. And then I would be found without clean underwear on, at that.

You think I should have warned Beardsley?