Goodbye

Dear Landlord/Room mate,

I'm Really sorry, my money didn't come through and I've had to go back to England to sort it out. I'll be in touch about the rent soon. You're a really nice guy and this wasn't my intention, sorry.

Tenant

Is how my concise and uneloquent final correspondence to my landlord and flatmate read.

I'd been thinking about running away without paying any of the promised rent for about a week, ever since I discovered that money owed to me from England was not going to happen.

In the final few days I had been avoiding my landlord. We shared a 1 bedroom flat in Sweden: me in the bedroom and him in the living room. This meant that I had no shared access to any facilities, my bedroom consisting of basically a matress on the floor causing it to look like a smack den.

In the beginning I made a firm resolve that I wouldn't go into the living room and make use of any TV/Dvd/Combination as this would be unfair behaviour towards someone who had been good to me.

I think I cracked within 2 days, starting to regularly watch videos and Dvds when he was at work. I decided that this was actually right for me to do this, not wrong, and now it would only be wrong if I started drinking his chai tea and using his record player.

But, I really like chai tea and I really wanted to listen to music.

The longer I settled in there the more boundaries I continually set for myself and then subsequently broke.

<>Don't delve into his sealed Lord of the Rings Christmas chocolate pack that he obviously sees as a collectors item.

<>Don't go into his laptop to watch naruto.
<>Don't play with the scanner.

<>Don't route through his drawers and start playing with his camera.

<>Don't toot on his trombone.

One day he announced that he was going to a role playing game in Stocholm and wouldn't be back until the next day. I made myself at home: eating in the living room, records, dvds and videos everywhere. Actually, I'm bored so I think I'll drop some acid and listen to music.

30 minutes later the door opens and he's there with his girlfriend.
Shit.
I hadn't planned ever to be in this situation and so I had to think on my feet aiming to Guide myself out of it without having to directly aplogise or face any immediate consequences.

"Er, I had the Tv on there."
Shit! Terrible opener, need to direct attention away from the crime scene to an equally heinous act.

"The cat did a poo on the floor..."
Better, yes, don't forget about the evil cats now.

"even though the litter tray was clean..."
Aha! See? Their act was senseless, at least mine had some justification.

"I mopped it up though."
Perfect twist to put myself in a positive light.

'My plans were changed, I hope we didn't disturb you'
My flatmate says this in the manner of those kind teachers at school. The ones who don't shout at you for being naughty, but make you feel really guilty inside by treating you nice and softly. They don't get angry so you have something to hate them back at for, they wanna see you squirm with embarrassment and admit your wrongs. In this instance "I hope we didn't disturb you" really meant. Haha! Look what you do when you think you have free reign over my flat. What the fuck are you doing? We've caught you in the act, red handed and there's no escape.

I decide to go into dumb mode and take these words for their literal meaning

"No...no...it's fine..don't worry about it, no need to apologise"
Haha, what a genius way to avoid all confrontation.

I went into my room and crawled into bed with the lights off. I feared greatly for what was going to happen to me being trapped in a dark room with a head full of acid.

No comment.

I avoided him for the remaining few days. I knew that if I saw him then I would feel guilty and I didn't wanna feel that way.

It became apparent that I was gonna have to do a runner and this felt fucking awful that I would leave Leylla, but it felt good that I was gonna skip the rent. Even though I liked my flat mate and he had been good to me, I couldn't muster up any feelings of conscience about running away. 2 weeks before he had announced that he had just found a bank account that he had "forgotten" about with £4000 in it and so I guess I had little sympathy at that point.

When I had been on his laptop I had seen the photos he had taken with his camera. Really bad shots of the cats and some zoomed in shots of The Simpsons opening credits. This really annoyed me as my camera is broken; I use cameras well and enjoy getting creative with them. The same thing happens when I see some little rich punk with an i-pod listening to happy hardcore or pop music. I deserve that i-pod! And you know what the most fucked up thing is? I'd technically be in the wrong if I beat up those little shits and stole their i-pods.
Madness.
Just because someone has money does that mean they have more of a claim over something than someone who deserves it and would put it to good use, not seeing it as a fashion accessory?

I genuinely, genuinely compare my struggle to that of Israel and Palestine. The palestinians -Me- deserve the land -Cameras, ipod, whatever- but because Israel -Rich,undeserving people- is rich with America backing it up they can assume control.

So, yeah, in the end it felt like I was doing him a favour by running away without paying the rent because I didn't take the camera with me, even though I would put it to better use.

I packed my stuff, left the note and my last thought of my ex-flatmate was
"you lucky, lucky bastard"