An Aluminium Fix

There are holes in my walls again – my home, it’s a leaky bucket. I stuff them with aluminium, €1.95 a roll; it’s what I can afford, and what I’m willing to spend. A mice infestation is the landlord’s problem, but it’s normal, they tell me. Oh, and make sure to sweep up any crumbs in your studio. That’s what they’re coming for.

But I keep all my food in the fridge and microwave – even my pasta, and even my scraps. I wonder, sometimes, if it’s my thoughts they’re feeding on, my thoughts that let them in. I mean, there’s nothing else in here but me.

One day, I’ll recall myself here in Lille, in my mice-infested studio. Me standing on a chair as one scurries beneath my bed. Me seated at my desk, listening to them in the walls. Me in the night, woken by the gnawing and squeaking, waiting for the thin wall to flap open like a drawbridge. At least they’re not in my room itself anymore, not today. No more urine on my pillow, no more pellets on my sheets. Little black grains of rice – you don’t notice them at first, not until you do. And yes, I hugged my pillow tight despite the strange odour. And yes, I was disgusted when I identified its beady-eyed source.

But one day, I’ll remember me here like this. And I’ll remember the €2.59 bottle of red wine I bought to fall asleep, to drown out the constant scratching. I’ll recall the grease marks on my pillowcase which I had the sense to change despite my inebriety and confusion. And I’ll remember my landlords, rich, who said poison was the fix. Didn’t seal any of the holes, though. Didn’t call pest control. I think I might despise the wealthy. They’re still fat-handedly pocketing my monthly rent, shovelling my savings into their full mouths. And still, they have the audacity to roleplay civility, to dab their oily lips with a napkin and hold in their farts. Excuse the vulgarity, but I think it vital to highlight the absurdity and pretension of those who are supposedly civil merely because they deny their basic bodily functions. What a weird fucking costume party, it all is. And I, I’m dressed as the first graduate of an uneducated, working-class family. We, we’re the scum, right? Not you and your dry-cleaned exploitation. Another glass of cheap wine, anyone? Wine, it’s a lot like aluminium, and I stuff myself with it. Sorry, do I seem bitter?

Scamper, bang, and I shoot up out of bed – mice in the walls and in my head. Something resounds in the air, a feeling, no longer a sound. Hypervigilant like a sentry in a watchtower. Did I imagine it? I get my fix, a glass of red, and another, and another, enough to melt into sleep like a grip loosening around the neck of a bottle.

The closet heaves, breathing like an entity, its doors like arms ready to swing open and absorb me into its hairy, toothy, squeaking, squirming chest. My back against the swelling monster. It inflates like a balloon, hatches like an egg, a swarm of noses press against the membrane, chew their way through, and pool into my bedroom. And then I wake up, of course. I wake up, and my bags, hanging on the coatrack, start to rumble, to jitter, to squeak, and to unzip. And then I wake up yet again—who knows what’s real and what isn’t? —to my bedroom throbbing like an abscess, like a rotten tooth to be pulled. This is my home – my swollen, festering home.

And in the mornings, I check for new holes and seal them. But it’s at night that the mice come alive, when they gnaw, when they thrive. And just when you think you’re out of the woods, you catch a little guy scurrying behind your bookshelf or find a new highway in your closet. All the cracks in my walls are filled like Kintsugi, silver branches hard to bite through. But aluminium, it’s only a temporary fix. Aluminium, it only covers the problem, but the mice are still alive in my walls. And I’m not so sure this story is entirely about rodents anymore.

Three new holes in three drunk days. Stuff them with corks, I could. The mice, they’re like water, my bed a shoddy lifeboat. And my mice, they lay siege for a single crumb, for a flicker of doubt or grief. But how do I sweep up my thoughts? How do I seal them in airtight containers?

The crunch, the crinkle of silver branches in my walls. The aluminium doesn’t hold. Free legal advice, it’s a call away, and I call, I call for help.

“There are mice in my apartment,” I say.

“Send us videos, send us the chatlog.”

And I do.

It’s OK to ask for help – you know, when there are mice in your walls. And I wish I could give you a conclusion. I wish I could say they called pest control, that they sealed the holes with steel wool – something permanent. But I’m still in the thick of it, still in the woods. Wood, they gnaw through it as though it were cheese – nothing, really. Persistent little guys. What are your mice, and what’s your aluminium? Have you conquered them, have you sealed the holes? Any advice, anyone? I mean, we’re all in this together.

Except the wealthy, of course. Unless you’re self-made. We might forgive you then. It’s a curse, though, isn’t it? Being a brat. Knowing nothing else. A handicap. And a 59-year-old man who knows nothing but money, is he really a man at all?

But I digress. The mice, they still squeak. There’s a scratching in my kitchen beneath the sink. Stuffed, it is. Stuffed with an aluminium fix. Tonight, I’m drinking Kasteel Rouge – and even if it doesn’t ward off the critters themselves, it’ll ward off my awareness of them. Not that that’s a good thing.