There's a Japanese man in the freezer.
I can't see him, but after closing the door to the fridge, he'll start playing those Taiko drums. No, it's not even drums he's playing. He'll tap just the bachi sticks together, slowly, in some dramatic way-tap tap, tap tap, tap tap, tap-and then silence, until someone else open and closes the refrigerator. I think it's strange. No one else seems to think so.
"It's just the ice machine," my girlfriend says. But she doesn't know.
She wouldn't know the difference between organic, steamable baby peas and a three-cheese Hot Pocket. The only time she opens that freezer, it's to get dessert: froyo, Neapolitan, or one of those fudge pops. It's a foreign land to her; she's just a visitor-a tourist, really, stopping by to get overpriced novelties.
Not me. I'm a celebrated veteran of the frozen foods section.
"That doesn't make any sense," I say. By now she's wandering into another room, humming some tune to a show about to come on TV. "Why would it be the ice machine. You didn't take any ice."
"It makes it automatically."
True enough.
"But why would the ice machine decide to make noise exactly after the door having been open?"
"It's probably just the temperature adjusting."
"Yeah. Right."
She looks at me as if I'm crazy, eyes striking like a stale twinkie across the jaw. "Are you honestly going to stand there," she begins, pointing her spoon at me from the couch, "and argue it's more likely your 'little Japanese man'," she gave the spoon a twirl, "is living in our freezer," more like mine-my freezer, "than it just being the ice machine making noise?"
I hear what she's saying, but I'm more concerned her spoon's about to take flight and scoop out one of my eyeballs. She's always throwing things. Like that twinkie mentioned earlier, which had to do with the basilisk in the tub drain. I wouldn't let it go-I mean, don't tell her this, but I still haven't let it go. Being told you are wrong is frustrating. She always uses her logic against me.
I stand there, silent. I tell myself I'll find him. Or proof; I'd settle for proof. Then she'd have to admit I'm right-about the Japanese man, the basilisk, everything. Our apartment is riddled with these things. It's a fucking refuge for anomalies-in-miniature.
"You'll see," I mumble, and slink away to fill the washing machine with my clothes.
We do our laundry separate. Is that weird? She says it doesn't bother her-that it's probably better that way. I used to throw her laundry in with mine. She didn't appreciate it. I can't fold, which she often points out, so we have mounds of clean clothes toppling everything. But only on Sundays; by Friday, the heaps consolidate in the bathroom.
Another thing? The dryer doesn't know when to quit. When it's ready, it'll buzz and stop and buzz and stop, irregularly. It's worse in the middle of the night. Sometimes, I wonder if there's a game show host screwing around in there in there. You know, in the spirit of Drew Carey from "Whose Line is it Anyway?"
But even I know that's crazy. No one is watching us. No one. Why would they?
Well, if you don't count her cat. I don't. Mr. Sprickles (spit and prickles), more commonly known as "my baby Lucy," doesn't have much of a choice.
What? Lucy can be Mr. Sprickles if I want.
Anyway, I'll come home from work and be like, "Lucyyyy, I'm homee."
She'll fall off the bed and jangle into the living room, swaying like an overweight drunkard, and lean against the wall.
"Are you hungry?" I'll ask, then laugh as she strains to perk her head up. Her tongue never stays in her mouth because of a birth defect. Hence the spit. It would be endearing if-well, no, it wouldn't if anything. It's gross.
"Well, too bad," I say. "You're borderline diabetic. Wait for Mommy to get home."
She shouldn't have shared so many fudge pops or Wingdings or stale Twinkies. Whatever. I don't pay attention to what they eat. It certainly isn't edamame with sea salt or Lean Cuisine.
The point is, this overweight fail-ball of fur is the only witness to this madness I endure, and she doesn't even have the capacity to stop drooling. She wouldn't know the sound of a Taiko drum from her own farts-both, mind you, would send her flying into the arms of a girl who wouldn't notice a hole in her own head if it meant detaching herself from the TV for more than two seconds.
So, fuck her. At least the Japanese man greets me whenever I open the door.
That damn basilisk, on the other hand? I've been trying to get rid of him for ages.
-first published by Catfish Creek in Spring of 2013.
