Indian Gothic

All of a sudden I’m not living with my roommate anymore. I mean I guess it had to happen at some point, being that he’s been married for two years now and hadn’t moved in with his wife yet, but some tiny flickering part of my brain kind of wondered if The Life would somehow never end, that I’d come home after work and he’d have a steaming bowl of curry and naan ready for the eatin’, that we’d have our drunken late-night conversations about superstring theory, that he’d continue to not mind me openly poking fun at the creepy painting he hung up in our living room. About this painting, it almost looked like a parodied version of American Gothic, with two Hindu gods instead of a stoic farmer couple. It was incredibly ornate, and glittery, and there was an eye on the hand of one of the gods, and there was lightning shooting out of the hand and shit. I hated it so much I loved it, and as I write that, I realize that parallels my feelings about my now ex-roommate.

It’s not that I don’t want him to be with his wife. She can visit one weekend a month, as always, and they can practice the Kama Sutra within these thin walls and after they are done for the night he can yell out THANK YOU COME AGAIN. But he’s gone, and my voice echoes in this near-empty apartment, and now what am I going to do.