Scrap #1

Here is Scrap #1 of some of the exploratory writing I did at the beginning of the process: 

The front door opens onto a hallway, which leads to another hallway and another, which leads into another, slightly smaller hallway and another, each a fractal piece of the last. And the pattern continues with minor irregularities - elevators and stairwells - channeling into smaller and smaller spaces until finally all of it spills onto the parquet floor of my apartment.

And

The first days I’m there I get lost a lot.

The first years I’m there I get lost a lot.

I walk in the front door, which creeks like an old man sitting down slowly, and I look up into the hallway, up through the hallway towards the elevator doors – two for twenty floors

The floor is marble - black and white tiles - and just recently polished because I shift my foot to adjust the load of moving boxes balanced against my hip and my sneakers squeak against the step and I think the sound is going to echo up and down the cavernous hallway but instead it’s stifled, swallowed up by the space, instantly split apart into smaller and smaller bits until nothing remains.

The boxes are heavy and my arms hurt and my chest is tight because I already know that I have too many things too much junk to fit in my tiny studio and I’m going to have to throw something away.

My arms hurt and my chest is tight because I know already and I knew it before. I knew it when I signed the lease and I knew it when I was packing and I knew it when I was putting things in the car and I knew it when I was driving over and parking and unloading

But I couldn’t decide

I laid everything out like a guillotine queue shuffling towards the big industrial trash bags

But instead I packed everything into boxes and hoped that neglect and attrition would do the job I couldn’t.