One Great City

Yesterday at 1 AM: sent out twenty e-mails to realtors and home owners in The Greater Boston Area.


Yesterday at 9AM: First e-mail response for house in Dorchester with laundry, recent renovations, and an affordable price. Wants to know more about me.

Yesterday at 9:30AM: Send response. Ask for viewing.

Yesterday at 10AM: Weird text from Dorchester house, making sure I know I would have to pay full rent. As though, somewhere in Boston is a landlord/realtor that takes partial rent, and the rest in M&Ms and lube stock. Casually mentions not having laundry.

Yesterday at 10:15AM: I mention that I'm disappointed that there's no laundry, since their ad mentions having laundry twice.

Yesterday at 10:17AM: Realtor asks for screenshots. I send them.

Yesterday at 10:30AM: Realtor sends me screenshots from their end, which is nearly identical, but specifically mentions No Laundry. I google laundromats near the house, am satisfied, request a time to look at the house.

Yesterday at 2:30PM: Realtor responds "Anyhoo" and suggests meeting at 11AM today. I accept.

This morning at 9AM: Realtor can't meet at 11AM. Can we reschedule for 11:30. I accept.

This morning at 9:30AM: Realtor can't meet at 11:30 but will send "someone" to meet me at the house "around 11:30". I agree, but only because they can't hear me grumbling at my phone.

This morning at 9:31AM: Realtor unsure anyone in our shared hemisphere can be at the house by 11:30. Maybe we can try this Sunday at 1pm?

This afternoon at 2PM: Realtor unsure house still exists. Posits that we may be in a pocket dimension where real estate doesn't exist. Is worried they've wasted their life. I agree.

This evening at 5:15PM: The house is back. It now has laundry but no bedrooms or gravity field, and is somehow in Winnepeg. Would that be too long a commute to Harvard Square?

This evening at 5:30PM: The house is gone again, but the laundry facilities are still there. In Winnepeg.

Tonight at 11:15PM: Realtor can't find their glasses. Is worried I didn't receive the last text. Sends a party of hedgehogs to track down my last known cell phone location. Realizes I am in a different pocket dimension. But also in Dorchester.

Tonight at 11:40PM: The hedgehogs massacre a troupe of Amway salespeople in Peabody Square. Lose all interest in hunting me down.

Tomorrow at 1:15AM: Realtor texts that gravity has returned to apartment, apartment has returned to Dorchester, laundry is still in Winnepeg, and now the bathrooms are in Tanzania. Is that inconvenient? And I have I seen their wallet? Or their toenail clippers?

Tomorrow at 1:17AM: I say that I am categorically uninterested in the apartment, and working with this particular realtor. This prompts seventeen unanswered texts asking what went wrong, escalating from apologies for the inaccurate ad, to using hate speech to point out that nobody will ever love any of my descendants, either.

​Tomorrow at 7:30AM: I wake up in the apartment I did not want. There is partial gravity. seventeen roommates, one quarter bathroom (a bucket and a melting glacier), and an altar to Cthulu in the middle of the possibly-living room. I am shown a twelve year lease agreement with my signature in blood. No pets. And a crudely drawn map to Tanzania, but no mention of Winnipeg.