Unzipped

I went into the bathroom, shut the door, unzipped my fly and pissed
straight into the bath. My piss was perfectly clear, because I had
drunk two bottles of water specifically for this task. My urine mixed
easily with the bath water and I aimed against the enamel to minimise
splashing.

It's silly really. Even as I was doing it I had a moment of regret, but
I was counting on the fact that he wouldn't notice, and besides, I was
in mid flow - if you try to stop it stings.

It started a few months ago, when we stopped cleaning up around the
house. We ran out of plates, then bowls, then cups, then clothes.

Instead of washing up, we devised ways of getting by. I used the same
bowl for everything; food, cereal, drinks. Chris ate and drank
everything out of boxes, bottles and cartons, which he left on the
floor around the house.

Instead of washing our clothes, we smelled. We did. We sprayed
deodorant on ourselves and watched TV.

When I suggested we empty the bin, Chris said he had been intending to
do it for the last couple of weeks. "Yeah, I'll take care of it," he
said. But The Fast Show was on. I could have done it myself, but he
started all this, I thought it was only fair to have him make the first
move. I also thought that if I started tidying up he would always
expect me to do it. And besides, The Fast Show was on.

The next day we talked about doing the hoovering, while watching a
repeat of Never Mind the Buzzcocks. And on the day after that we
thought about defrosting the fridge.

The next afternoon, I woke up to find a bin-bag, literally splitting
down the sides, propped up against the wall at the top of the stairs.
The cheek, I thought, if you're going to do a job, Chris, do it right,
and I promptly carried it, sour milk spilling against my bare legs, and
dumped it outside his bedroom door. I ate my breakfast out of my bowl,
watched some chat show on TV, because I couldn't find the remote
control, and then quickly got dressed and went to university.

When I got back the bin-bag was gone. Chris was in the front room
watching TV and drinking his third can of lager of the afternoon. The
kitchen looked much cleaner than it had done and it smelled better too.
We talked for a little while about going out that night, and half an
hour later I went to my room.

My bed was covered in rubbish: milk cartons, burger containers,
half-eaten chicken, wrinkled fries, soggy newspaper, fish, A4
notepaper, banana skins, beer cans, a condom and wrapper, lettuce, a
pizza box, the pizza, fish fingers, pasta and tuna, an economy orange
juice container, an apple, a crumpled Pringle box, the remote control
for the TV, some greasy foil and tiny little flies the size of a
pinhead.

We didn't talk about it.

A couple of days later, while Chris was at university, I went into his
room and picked all his clothes up off the floor and put them in a
bin-bag. Then I went around the house collecting up the rest of his
clothes, and some CDs, and dumped them in the bin-bag as well. I tied
it up with his only tie and took it down to the charity shop.

A week later, I was starting to dread these little things that we were
inflicting on each other. On returning from university, I climbed the
stairs with heavy feet.

I found my disk-box inside the microwave. It was on. Six months' of
design and thought, my coursework for that year. Gone. Still we didn't
talk about it, these disasters we were setting each other up with. I
sat next to him, bottling my rage, watching TV. He asked me how I was.
I said I was fine, thank you, and thought of ways of disguising
murder.

I went to the pharmacist, not a local one, and asked if there were any
poisons that couldn't be traced in the human body. They said they
couldn't think of any off the top of their heads. I said I'd settle for
a bottle of laxatives and they laughed and thought it was very funny.
So did I after a while.

A day later, in immediate retaliation to my laxatives-in-the-tea
incident, I found my bowl - the one and only bowl that I ate and drank
out of - filled with watery, light-brown, shit.

There were curdled, yellow lumps floating in it.

I was sick.

The curdled lumps turned out to be Cornflakes, my cereal of choice,
because it was a meal to begin with and when you had finished eating it
the remaining milk made a drink. Chris was sending me a clear message
with this and of all the things he did to me this was the most
unforgivable.

I bought a new bowl, a large, green one, and I called a truce. Chris
agreed. What we were doing to each other was silly.

Since our truce, we have taken to literally poisoning each other, and
there will be no more truces, everything will be denied, to each other,
to the police and to ourselves. I have a rash creeping up my leg and am
yet to determine the cause. I frequent varying pharmacies in order to
camouflage our chemical warfare. I even have a syringe.

And now here I am, pissing into a bath of hot water, shaking my dick
and sneaking out of the bathroom before Chris suspects I was in
there.

I stroll into the kitchen where Chris is standing by the worktop. "I
made you a cup of tea," he says.

"No, thanks," I say. "I've just had one." He must think I'm an
idiot.

He stirs his tea, disappointed, and then he notices something and says:
"Your flies are open."

I look down and oh God! he's right, but then I notice something about
him, and I tell him:

"So are yours."