MY ROOMMATE IS A PHOENIX

“Milo! Milo! I know you are in there. Come out here! Bang! Bang!” The sound of loud knocking sounded on the door as the landlady slammed her hand against the door several times. The noise woke Milo up and he stretched his hand for the person next to him, only to reach empty space, he stretched his hand more and more, moving his body until he fell on the ground. “Ouch!” He murmured, the pain waking him up fully. Milo rubbed his hand on his butt. The landlady heard the noise and began knocking even louder, “Milo! Milo!” Milo’s eyes widened and he hurriedly stood up, almost stumbling as he made his way to the door. He opened it and came face to face with a short woman who was glaring at him, “You heard me and you ignored me.” She scoffed, “You have guts.” Mile put on the most ingraining smile that he could muster for someone who had been forcefully awakened from his sleep, “Madame, I am sorry. I was sleeping....” “Sleeping!” She screamed, spittle flying and landing on Milo, “You dare be sleeping so early this morning when you have not paid your rent. Look outside, you would see your agemates going to work and you are here sleeping! Three days. I would give you three days, if you do not pay me the three months rent that you are owing, just wait!!!” With that, she turned and left. Milo sighed, holding his head that had started pounding. He reached for his phone to check the time; it was 8:20 a.m. He had worked all night as a clerk in the convenience store down the road, just sleeping by 6:20am. Three months rent, Milo could not help but feel a sense of grievance in his heart. This woman had just increased her rent by 50% without repainting the house or doing any major renovation. The city had built a new golf course and it had been attracting a new wave of rich people into the city. Other Landlords had responded in turn, painting and renovating their houses, increasing the rent in hopes of chasing away riff raff like him and attracting new people to their neighborhood. It was not all that bad. The richer people move in, the better the security and the more they could provide odd jobs for him and the more jobs he could get the more he could pay off his rent. Holding his pounding head, Milo walked out of the house to close the small gate. “Grandfather. You see what I am going through.” With how much he is earning per month, Milo knew he could comfortably live in a small studio apartment and have some change. But he had grown up with his grandfather in this place and his grandfather had stressed several times that he should never leave this place or he would suffer most grievously. According to his grandfather, this small three-bedroom bungalow had belonged to their ancestors. However, one of them, during the urbanization of the village, had greedily sold off the building to one of the real estate companies. The man had opened a small business in the morning. He had lived well for a year before his business failed, his son died and his wife ran away with one of his workers. His great great grandfather could only crawl back to the house he had sold off with barely enough change to rent it. It had become a family legend of sorts, once anyone moved away from the house, bad things would happen to them. Milo had nodded without believing even a punctuation mark in the story. This was the 21st century, there was no such things as family bad luck or other superstitions. When he had turned 18, he had ignored his grandfather’s advice and moved out. Milo closed his eyes at the memory, he still did not believe in all those BS. Everything that happened was his own fault, his own stupidity. His fingers touched the flowers that his grandfather had planted out back. But still, he had returned. His grandfather had died. His father never acknowledged his existence, his mother was married with her new shiny family, his grandfather was all he had and this place was all his grandfather had. He refused to lose. He would not lose this place. He couldn’t lose it either. Oh heavens! His head was pounding. He needed to sleep, even if it was for thirty minutes. Milo headed back into the house when he heard a beep from his phone. It was the job app that he had downloaded. “Hoping you improve the ascetics of my kitchen. Looking for someone proficient in pottery to make a set of dishes and plates as shown in the picture. Forward your proposal to this mail. Urgent job, I am hosting a party on Saturday.” Has Milo done a pottery job before? Scratch that. Milo had never even played with clay as a child but the moment he saw that message, his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. In this time, there was nothing one could not learn online. Perhaps if Milo had slept more than two hours, he would have enough cognitive reasoning to recall that fine art colleges are some of the most expensive colleges one could go to but he didn’t so Milo rushed back in, pulled out his laptop and began to draft the most emotive proposal he was capable of. And he waited for the reply, he needed to go into the kitchen. He took a bowl, poured some milk and then some toasted cornflakes. Carrying it, Milo headed back to the living room and sat cross-legged on the ground, he took the remote and put on the most boring movie that he had ever had the pleasure of coming across but Milo had taken a recap job online so he had to watch it carefully and he could not skip. Five minutes later, the beep from his phone sounded loudly and Milo woke up. He sighed and paused the movie. Maybe he should start a gig where he puts children to sleep, his secret in this movie. But then again, which parent would allow someone with a criminal record to go near their kids. He reached for his phone, his eyes lighting up when he saw that an interview offer had appeared on the app. He hastily used the Ai for a summary of pottery and connected with the woman immediately . He might lack a lot of things but as long as he could reach the Interview section, his chance of getting the job would increase to at least 40%. Milo wore his boots and took his wallet as he headed to the Open Market to buy Clay. Turns out a lack of sleep can make someone make bad decisions, like accepting a job for pottery when you don’t have a potter’s wheel or a kiln or a wire cutter or even a slab roller. “So, you can rent them to me?” Milo blinked his eyes in a way that he hoped made him look desperate. Morgan laughed, “Sure I can, everything would be five hundred dollars for two days...Milo, Don’t you dare slam my door!” Milo closed the door more quietly than he initially intended. If he had five hundred dollars to rent a potter’s wheel and kiln, why would he survive on two hours of sleep per day? He bought some things to make lunch and dinner and headed back home. He opened the gate and walked in. Put in his key and then the code for the house before the door opened. He walked in, dropping the bag on the table. The next second, he froze. He blinked several times not sure if he was hallucinating and moved closer to the living room. He pinched himself, the slight pain telling him he was awake. He took another step. Why...Why was a man sleeping in his living room!