2005 page 1

There was a loud bang at the door, followed by a muffled curse. Silence, and then the jingling of keys, muted as it were, should you happen to be listening to keys jingling from behind an inch-think wooden door.

The smooth grating of the metal key into the metal tumbler of the lock in the inch-think wooden door could be heard from within the house. But there was no one in the house to hear it, not even animals, unless you count Benji the stuffed sparrow.

Benji was a present 10 years ago from old Uncle Stuart, who used to love to hunt innocent animals in far off continents. His nephew (who was trying his best to open the door) thought he would still enjoy the occasional hunt, if he was not too busy lying in his coffin six feet under the ground over at the church across the street.

The lock slammed, and the door was flung open, as if the person who did it was in a great haste. Benji stared at the door from his perch in the corridor of the apartment. It was a good perch, for it afforded Benji a view of almost every corner of the apartment, save the room that was behind it. Were Benji still alive, it would have been curious as to what the room behind him was. In fact, it would have simply turned around and looked in.

But then again, if it could have done that, Benji was sure it would have simply opted to fly out of this dusty apartment and try to find some way back to its nest. Its mate was waiting for it, you know. The pair was busy building their nest, when some inconsiderate Human (Uncle Stuart, Benji believed), shot a tranquillizer dart into its hide. Benji fell asleep with dreams of having a dozen little sparrows with its mate.

But those dreams were not to be. Now Benji's body was stuck up on the wall of a corridor, its wings, head, and beak covered in a thin layer of dust.

The Human stumbled into the house, arms laden with bags from the local super mart. With a sigh that indicated that this Human was not having a good day, and that if anything else went wrong, he would scream, much like a girl would; only manlier.

Nudging the door close with his bottom (the Human always thought his bottom was too scrawny), the Human shuffled the five feet that separated him from the kitchen. Once there, he set the bags on the floor before shuffling back to the door and closing it.

Somewhat calmed, the Human set about unpacking the things from the bags into the cupboards in the kitchen, humming a chirpy tune.

The chirpy tune died a few minutes later, when the Human, whose name was Dean, by the way, stood up and surveyed his surroundings.

If he was whistling, the note that he'd be whistling would be a monotonic 'B Minor'.

The area in front of the front door, where he kept a shoe cupboard, was littered with shoes, flip-flops, sandals, and other footwear that he'd left lying around. Less than two feet from the mess was his six-foot long fish tank. Interestingly enough, the tank held no fish. In fact it did not even hold any water at the moment. What it did hold, however, was sand. Five full kilos of it. The tank sprang a leak the year previous, and Dean could not be bothered to fix it.

The living room and dining area were fairly clean, based on the fact that he hardly spent any time there at all.

The kitchen was another story. Dirty dishes lay in the sink, piles of laundry lay stacked up in front of the washing machine, the wok and pots sat on the stove, in a bad need of a wash.

Dean sighed and threw his hands in the air. He decided that he'd hire a part-time domestic helper to clean up this mess. With that settled, he trudged off towards his room, wanting a bath.

Five minutes later, lying in a tub full of warm water and foamy bubbles, Dean sighed (again) and contemplated his life thus far.

He had it pretty good, compared to other people his age. At a score and two years old (that's twenty-two), he had his own five-room apartment on the east side of sunny (and sometimes wet) Singapore, for which he did not have to pay a single cent, for it was fully paid for already. He had his own car; a snazzy Ferrari Enzo, freshly minted. And he had a steady stream of cash with…