The Ticking Time Bomb

Cruunnncchhh. Ben looked down at his bare foot, under which was a demolished red solo cup. He looked at the ceiling and let out a long sigh through gritted teeth. Coffee first. Need coffee. Ben ignored the cup on the ground and made a beeline for the kitchen. Just as he was about to take his first sip of coffee, which no doubt would have burned his tongue, a loud moan emanated from the bedroom. “I hear you’re up!” Ben yelled over his shoulder. 

“Nope, still down,” Kate mumbled. 

Kate emerged five minutes later, looking so disheveled Ben would have believed it if she claimed she had just wrestled a tiger in the jungle. Already on his second cup of coffee and feeling much more awake, Ben said, “We should host a party every Friday! Don’t you think it was a blast?”

Kate gave him her best hungover death glare. “Can it be a cleaning party? Look at this fucking mess. How did this even happen? Are we animals!?”

Ben looked at the floor with a somber face. “Yeah. Yeah, we are technically animals.” 

Two hours and seven total cups of coffee later, Kate had picked up three half-full beer bottles, a ping pong ball, and someone’s lost bucket hat. Ben had picked up the red solo cup he had stepped on earlier, some records that were strewn on the floor by the record player, and six (quite smelly) socks, none of which had a pair. Kate went to throw her entire collection in the trash when Ben stopped her. “What the fuck are you doing? None of that goes in the trash!”

“Yes it does, it’s all contaminated.”

“Contaminated with what?” Ben was suddenly slightly concerned that Kate knew something he didn’t.

“Party germs,” Kate said with a disgusted face.

“Oh. Well, just wash your hands when we’re all done. The beer goes down the sink, the bottles in the recycling, and that ping pong ball is ours, so don’t throw it out.”

“But it has a dent in it!” Kate thrust the ping pong ball in Ben’s face, showing him the large dent.

“Ugh, really? Fucking people, no respect... Fine, just throw it out. But someone might want their hat back.”

Kate looked at Ben like he was crazy. “Bucket hats are stupid, no one even wears them anymore. Why are we even friends with someone who owns a fucking bucket hat?!”

Ben let out a loud laugh, but he kind of agreed with Kate. “Just.. keep it until Monday. If no one comes looking for it by then, we’ll chuck it.”

Kate gave Ben a long stare, then threw her hands in the air. “Fine. Fine! But I don’t want to look at it. It’ll stay…” Kate scrunched her nose and looked around their tiny, cluttered apartment. “Under the kitchen sink.”

Ben shook his head at Kate but didn’t argue. He put the socks with the hat under the sink and turned around to look at their living room, which made him want to cry. There was a dark brown stain on the carpet with a matching stain on the ceiling above it. Ben didn’t even want to know. On the coffee table sat bowls of cheetos, chips, and dip, and at least ten flies were buzzing around the food. The screen door to their balcony displayed a gaping whole, and Ben vaguely remembered walking into it last night.  

Kate was now sitting on the couch, browsing Netflix shows. Ben tried to contain his frustration. “Kate, honey, we’re not done yet. Come on.”

Kate made a grunting noise. “I don’t want to. It’s overwhelming. Can’t we hire an agency or something? Do they have those in Indiana?” 

“No, we’re not doing that, that’s crazy.”

“Here we go again,” Kate said with a heavy sigh, still fixed on the TV.

“What?”

“You calling me crazy. All my ideas are crazy to you!” Kate was looking at Ben now, her eyes wide and bloodshot. 

“What? No they’re not,” Ben said unconvincingly.

“Everything I do is wrong, or crazy, or not good enough! Tell me, have you ever taken me seriously? Or do you just want to fix me, so I can be your perfect little girlfriend that you show off to your friends?”

“Ouch, K, is that really what you think of me?”

“Ben, this isn’t about what I think! It’s about what you think of me. You see me as this wacko girl, who has no ambitions in life, who can’t get a real job, who flunked out of school because she was stupid. Well, maybe that’s true. But you don’t see me as I am. You like the idea of me, the idea of what I could be, if I just fixed myself. Well, I can’t, Ben. I can’t fucking fix myself! This is me!”

Ben’s stomach knotted itself. He turned around, walked casually to the kitchen counter, gently picked up one of the half-full beer bottles, and hurled it at the wall as hard as he could. It smashed to pieces, beer and glass covering the hallway. Kate gave a quiet gasp, but stayed put as Ben threw the second bottle, and then the third.

Ben couldn’t look at Kate, his eyes welling up without warning. He stormed off toward the door, realizing too late that he was walking barefoot over shards of glass. The door slammed behind him when he left their unit, rattling the wind chimes in their neighbor’s kitchen. He ran down the dingy, carpeted hallway and pressed the elevator button. Remembering after a full minute of pounding the button repeatedly that the elevator was down, Ben tiptoed towards the stairs, trying not to force the glass further into his foot. Tears were now streaming down his face, and he didn’t stop when sweet Mrs. Davidson appeared and asked him what the heavens was wrong. When he reached the stairs, he gave up tiptoeing and gave in to the pain. Three flights down, two to go, he tripped. Tumbling down, down, down, no witnesses were present to confirm that Kate, meanwhile, was curled up in a ball on the couch watching a fish documentary.