I felt kind of offended when that Umos lady from the estate agency called me about the place she had just for the kind of people like me. Maybe partly because I wasn't expecting to hear such judgmental thought from her, and partly because she had half yelled at me throughout our conversations. Maybe her monthly target had been raised after the new year, or maybe she was just pissed about what I had to say about the owner during our last visit.
Apartment hunting, as the name disguised under the camouflaged good will of the word hunt, I knew it would not be an easy task but require a lot of planning and calculation. The prey out there were limited, and many had high demands. To find the one that matches and fits, that was the hardest part. Too many variables at the end ruined the prefect space of a loner's home.
Anyway, I told the lady that I would be available on the alternate scheduled date, which was a Sunday, and wrote down the details about when and where to meet up. After that she just hissed a goodbye like a civilized and educated person and hung up on me.
Truth to be told, I had got nothing going on the first scheduled date, but I wanted to make myself look really busy and knee deep in what I told Umos I was doing, which was a translator for some giant corporations in the city. I had to be consistent with my story, my life.
So we met up, at the east side of the Columbus Circle at ten in the morning. Sunday in the summer was sunny yet sour to the skin, and someone should really stop smoking.
"How's it going?" I tried to converse.
Umos threw me a stare and exhaled the mist through her wrinkled lips. "Follow me," she ditched the cigarette butt on the sidewalk so casually among the crowd, and skillfully rubbed the life of the flame away with the tip of her high heel.
We traveled seven floors upward and when she opened the door to the apartment, I felt dead inside my head.
I felt dead so that I could felt reborn.
"Now, we've got companies backing up on this project and the city is also betting on this, so this unit is free for you to live for a year, see it as a complimentary gift from me. But the people behind this will need to collect your opinions about living in here every single month, that sounds like something you would be willing to do?" said Umos.
"Sure," I replied.
"Alright, I'll put you on the list then."
***
I moved in about a week later. It had me dazed for a while with its merely 160 square feet of space like a standard freight container, except it had everything from bed to kitchen. Unlike those illegal immigrants that was shipped from oversea inside a real container, mine was way better.
Space didn't matter, the price did.
And while I enjoyed the free meal, there were a certain restrictions and duties that I had to follow when I signed the contract and the non-disclosure agreement.
Besides the no roommates nonsense, and the mandatory monthly interrogation by two corporate dummies and maybe another freak from the marketing department, everything went just as smoothly as one could get when living in a pseudo container environment.
And the view beat every other place I lived, along with the sound, the beat, the vibe of the city, it was at last, perfect.
Though I had reserved opinion about the wall, which they had painted it with a thin layer of pink. Not that I could not live without the traditional white, but seriously, who would paint their wall pink anyway? And when I tried to convince them to let me, or the worker to paint it white, they refused my request. And I soon gave up on the idea because I knew, I was obliged to keep the apartment at its original state as per the contract.
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