I'm Going Slightly Mad

Chapter 27

Normally, this apartment was the poster child of OCD. The kitchen was always spotless, even after Aaron’s failed attempts at cooking. The study was always organised within an inch of its life; books in alphabetical order, papers in neat stacks, and carpet freshly vacuumed. The closet, though packed, had order as well. Shirts, and then pants, and then blazers and jackets, with drawers for socks, belts, underwear, and pajamas. Everything was organised by color, of course, since alphabetical was all but impossible. Aaron was actually quite proud of his closet, under normal circumstances.

Today, everything was different.

The kitchen was disgusting. Dirty plates littered the counter, crumbs blew across the floor like tumbleweeds, and there was a pile of silverware on the table. Aaron wasn’t sure why, or even if it was clean or not. In the closet, a second carpet had formed, made up of discarded clothes, most of them clean. None of the floors had been vacuumed in a while, longer than Aaron could remember, and were probably absolutely filthy. Aaron didn't dare take a closer look.

This wasn’t the worst of it, though. The worst was the study.

Papers were strewn across the floor, covering almost every inch of carpet. They cluttered the desk as well, these parcels scribbled across with neat handwriting. The laptop, sitting crookedly on the desk, had at some point been left open and on, displaying a minimalistic green and blue wallpaper, and very few icons. This must be the only thing in the room that looked even remotely organised. Even the desktop gadgets had been carefully placed: one that looked like the speedometer of a car in the bottom right corner, and another in the top right corner telling anyone who would look that it’s currently eighty-one degrees fahrenheit and partially cloudy in Yonkers, NY. The only thing on the desktop that didn’t fit was a sticky note like gadget that read, in an imitation handwriting font: July 12th: magazine interview, 2 PM.

This was the epicenter of destruction, and pacing back and forth in the middle of it was the man that let it fall into such a state.

In stark contrast to the room around him, Aaron seemed to be the picture of professionalism. His hair, a bit shorter than it was before, was combed back out of his face, held still with gel which served the double purpose of making it extra shiny. He covered up his freckles, which seemed to have multiplied over the past couple years, with makeup. This was something he wasn’t quite used to yet, but it looked natural enough and his freckles had become invisible, so it was good enough. His glasses were safely in their case, replaced by the usual contacts.

Compared to his outfit, however, the rest could almost be called lazy.

All of that shuffling through his closet was worth it, as he's now dressed better than he had been in years. A gray button down, once again buttoned to the top and the sleeves rolled down, with his favorite black tie and a matching blazer. Jet black trousers completed the outfit. His feet were the only exemption to this perfection, clad only in socks as they padded across the paper littered floor.

Aside from these exceptions, Aaron was a complete wreck. His eyes were wild, flicking from the computer, to the papers on the desk, to the papers on the floor, seemingly without pattern or reason. Behind his back, he wrung his hands together, nails biting into the skin. He longed to run his hands through his hair in his usual nervous habit, but he clearly remembered spending over half an hour getting it perfect, and the last thing he wanted was to be late for his appointment.

Magazine interview, 2 PM.

This was the key, the reason for Aaron’s anxious state and the disarray that was his apartment. It wasn’t exactly what it sounded like. Aaron was not being interviewed by a magazine, nor was he interviewing someone for a magazine. This was the most important sort of interview of all: a job interview. This would be his second one this week, after the first one didn’t work out. He wasn’t too upset about that, as he wanted to work for this magazine more than the first one.