Balancing Act

Five more steps then a right turn, hop ten more steps then a slight dip. Damn. Shoddy work, this bit here- the threshold's uneven between the kitchen and living room, a downright trip hazard, Gord thinks. That's what you get for cheap rent. Stupid landlord thinks makeshift is satisfactory. If you're going to do something.....Eight weeks in a full leg cast and he's mapped out the entirety of his 500 square foot apartment down the inch. How many steps to the kitchen, how many degrees torque required to open the fridge door while balancing on one leg as he tries to finangle open the crisper without taking a header into the freezer. His own private choreography, a bad two-minute bit from some lame busker who could never master juggling more than 3 balls.
Fuck! Damn, piss, shit, crap...the jar of tomato sauce slips from his grip and explodes on the tile, sending red sauce up the front of his cast, inside the fridge shelves and all the way across the backsplash. Perfect. This is why Geoff makes fun of him for spending eight bucks on organic Whole Foods crap, so he can watch it slide through his fingers and repaint the walls. What a waste. Two more weeks, the doc said. Then maybe surgery, he won't know until the final pictures. Ten weeks living like a cripple. A gimp. A hobbitt, burrowed in his ever shrinking lair. Fuckit, Gord says out loud, to no one in particular. Wiping the sauce from his cast with a makeshift tea towel that used to be a favourite concert t-shirt, he retraces his steps. He flips on the turntable and drops the needle. Let's Get Lost as Chet Baker begins to play.