Gross Paper Towel Roll by Katie Cossette
“Well,” Beth heaved a crumpled cardboard box on the towering pile. “That’s the last one. Welcome to our humble abode!” She spread her arms out to present the small apartment, furtherly dwarfed by the many boxes strewn about. The walls were a slight beige, tinged from the cigarettes that previous occupants had smoked and that Linus would add to, and there was one window in the main area that had its screen laid out on the floor. It was difficult to find a space that all three could afford, that was near a metro station of some kind, and that wouldn’t resolve in one of them getting stabbed on their walk home from work, but they did it. Beth, Amber, and Linus had made it out into the real world. Freedom seemed to smell like…mildew.
“How are we going to fit everything in here?” Amber manoeuvred through the cardboard maze, cursing with every stubbed toe, to start unpacking the boxes with ‘KITCHEN SHIT’ scrawled across the sides.
Linus took a small potted cactus out from one of the boxes and placed it on the window sill. He nudged it to the left, then slightly to the right, and hummed with contentment. “We’ll make it work. Look, Frank’s made himself at home already.” A wide grin stretched his stubbly face, practically glowing at the fact that his cactus now had a proper home—so did he.
“Frank’s not putting in his share of the work and neither are you for that matter.” Amber huffed. Her wild curly hair had been pulled back into a strict bun, but bouncy tendrils flew out by her temples.
“Amber, don’t worry.” Beth carefully cut open a box labelled ‘CLEANING??’ and brought it to the bathroom. Cracked tiles wobbled under her feet and she made a mental note to head to the hardware store at some point this week. “It all looks a mess now, but by the end of the week this place will be sparkling.” A sharp shriek echoed through the apartment and Beth launched herself out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Her small chest heaved and red targets bloomed on her cheeks. Amber and Linus looked at her quizzically. “There was a dead mouse in the cabinet.” She blubbered, her head falling into her hands.
Linus got up from his cross-legged position on the floor, groaning at the pops from his knees, and walked over to the shut door. He patted Beth on the head and walked in, and after a few moments of silence walked back out. The two girls stared at his deadpan expression. “Clearly there’s been a murder.”
“You’re an asshole,” Beth swatted his shoulder, but her bright giggles broke the serious tone she was aiming for.
“Oh, for God’s sake, you two,” Amber rummaged around for a moment and pulled out a roll of paper towels. She tore off a section and stomped to the bathroom and swiftly picked up the dead mouse. With quick efficiency, she dropped the body in the toilet and flushed. “I’m living with children, actual children.”
Linus held an arm out towards the toilet. “Mickey?”
Amber snorted and tried to cover it up with a cough, but her lips squirmed, trying to keep from smiling. “Fuck off.”
The three of them got into a comfortable rhythm where Amber separated the boxes into their respective categories and unpacked the eclectic collection of dishes they had brought together, Beth deep cleaned the apartment as she emptied boxes, nervous of seeing any other creatures – dead or alive, and Linus picked the perfect playlist and set up the Wi-Fi and all their electronics. By six o’clock that night their things were mostly unpacked, the apartment much cleaner than this morning, and their phones had speedy connections.
They sat on the floor as they ate greasy pizza from the little shop down the street, rating its quality for future dinners.
“Now, I think their cheese-to-sauce ratio is great, but this crust?” Linus chewed thoughtfully. “It’s a little doughy.”
“You’re crazy.” Beth pulled another thick slice from the box, the cheese stretching high in the air. “You’re just used to thin crust, this is good.”
“I agree with Beth, you’re not sane, Lin.” Amber piped up from the kitchen. She came back to the floor with paper towels and placed one in front of each of them.
“Amber, are these the same paper towels from earlier?” Linus asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Linus nudged the square away from him with the tip of his sock. “Did this paper towel come from the roll that you picked the mouse up with?”
“Well, yeah.” Linus and Beth cringed and scooched further away from the makeshift napkins. “What’s wrong?”
“Can’t that be the gross paper towel roll?” Beth asked. “You know, the paper towel roll we only use for gross things like dead mice and spiders?”
“You realise I didn’t rub the mouse on all of the paper towels, right?”
“Theoretically you didn’t, but what if that mouse became vengeful in death and its spirit rubbed itself all over it to make us sick?” Linus threw his hands up. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to take that chance.”
Amber scowled. In a flash, the whole roll flew across the small space and dinked Linus on the head. He shrieked and threw himself back, his pizza flying in the air and landing in Beth’s lap. A flurry of curses left her lips and she jumped up and in the process spilled her soda all over Amber. The three of them, all soiled in different ways, broke out in laughter, tears streaking down their faces.
The apartment wasn’t new and many people had come and gone leaving traces of themselves in its flooring, its walls, and its spirit. Cobwebs seemed to grow in the hardest to reach places, a concerning brown stain marked the cracked tub, and the doors seemed hesitant to close properly. These quirks would make some people uneasy and choose somewhere else to live, and that includes Linus, Beth, and Amber. They chose it, though, and adorned the space with their own personal touches. Beth hung strawberry lights around the window in the living room and sprayed rose perfume when stressed about school. Amber kept peanut butter cups in the freezer, hidden behind a frozen bag of peas, to snack on when she was alone. Linus lined his walls with photographs—pictures of trees, of dogs, of drippy ice cream cones that made his hands sticky, of big beautiful buildings he came across, of Amber laughing, of Beth dancing, of himself, of the apartment.
Beth’s parents came by every once and while, sniffed with distaste, made uncomfortable small talk with Linus and Amber, ‘You like jazz, Mrs. Normandy?’ ‘Not particularly.’ ‘Aw, too bad.’, and left with curt goodbyes. Amber’s parents were too busy to see what their daughter had been up to except to ask how the job hunt’s been going and when she gets the chance to send them some money, ‘You know Becky wants to go to that horse riding camp over the summer.’ Linus didn’t hear from his parents and liked it that way.
A warm orange glow seemed to emanate from the apartment’s window late at night, the rest of the apartment complex a mess of darkened squares. Amber always felt cold until she passed the threshold and Linus’s shrieks warmed her skin, Beth’s hair a wicked flame as she bobbed through the apartment.
Maybe the apartment was cramped, the three of them battling to use the bathroom privately and to avoid knocking each other’s elbows in the kitchen. Maybe the apartment didn’t quite feel like where they lived with their parents—Amber had trouble falling asleep without her siblings hushed whispers; Linus missed the glowing light of the bar he had grown up across from; and Beth missed the pink walls of her parents' kitchen. Through all of this they made do, though. Amber lulled herself to sleep with Beth’s snoring. Linus hung up an LED sign in his room that painted his room red. Beth laid pink tiles in the kitchen by herself. In their hectic home made up of random snapshots, cheap IKEA furniture, and takeout containers, there was a wooden paper towel roll holder. A thin strip of duct tape was stuck along its bottom and in Linus’ shaky handwriting it read ‘GROSS PAPER TOWEL ROLL’.
“‘Gross Paper Towel Roll’ is one of the first completed pieces I ever wrote. It's been living deep in my Google Docs because I didn't think it had a good enough ‘story.’ It was an outburst of what I wanted life to be like since I was thinking about moving out for the first time. There are definitely things I would change about it, but won't, because then it wouldn't be the story it was supposed to be. It served its purpose and made me feel a bit better about that scary next step in life.”
Katie Cossette (she/her) is an English Literature student from Montreal, Quebec. Her work has been featured in Scribbles magazine as well as many secret folders on her laptop. She can be found on Instagram (@nerd.i.am) and now on Twitter (@cossette_katie).