Ancilla

Gevurah (part 1)

   I don't have many monthly bills to pay. To be exact, I have three.

   Even the three I have are too many.

   Rent takes precedence over everything else, of course, and I managed to pay it. I needn't have worried about keeping the apartment. My landlord was perfectly happy to accept my explanation of having had a longer weekend than I had expected, which, given that it meant an extra fifty dollars for him, should have come as no surprise to me.

   In fact, as things turned out, my immediate downstairs neighbors had vacated their apartment while I was gone, so I moved into it; I wish I hadn't, even though it was a necessity. My new living arrangements are too large and too expensive. The landlord also made me put down a deposit when I signed the lease. What am I going to do with a two-bedroom apartment? I grit my teeth and put a notice up on the bulletin board in the university student center, and a card on the notice wall of the supermarket, because those options were free, and free is all I can afford, but so far there have been no takers, and really, besides my not liking to share my space with other people, I can't imagine anybody wanting to live with me, either. Especially not here. There are worse places to live, but there are also much better places.

   The alternative to moving downstairs would have been eviction from an illegal apartment, though. It was only a matter of time.

   My landlord was even kind enough to waive the first month's rent on the new apartment. I therefore must only come up with the deposit, plus the late fee of fifty dollars. Paying a late fee on a waived month of rent strikes me as being more like a discounted first month's rent, or possibly like massive unfairness, but whatever he chooses to call it, I have to pay it. The main problem is that I still can't really afford the move or an increase in my monthly rent, especially since I moved in the same month that I ordered occult supplies from a catalog to make ritual garb for an initiation.

   Magister would no doubt have reimbursed me for that had I made mention of just how badly the expense hurt me. So, I haven't mentioned it.

   It's my other two bills I'm having a hard time with, since the apartment itself has now been paid for until December. If I pay my gas bill, I get to keep my heat and hot water, and I can use the stove in the kitchen; on the other hand, if I pay the electric bill, I get to keep my lights, and the refrigerator stays on. Now that it's finally turning cold outside, a functioning refrigerator isn't strictly necessary, especially since I don't have very much food that needs refrigeration, but lights are another matter.

   I decide that the lights are more important than central heating or a functioning stove, now that it's getting dark early, and the sun rises later in the day. I need to be able to find my clothes and see myself in them when I dress for work. I do have a flashlight, but the batteries are dead, and I can't afford to replace them.

   More importantly, I need to keep my alarm clock functioning. It's the only clock I have, and it runs on electricity. I need it to make sure I wake up and catch the bus on time if I want to keep my job. I could buy a wind-up clock or a battery-operated travel alarm, but that, like new batteries for my flashlight, or candles and matches for that matter, would require spare funds that I don't have, because I need what little spare change I have for bus fare.

   My new job working for the local newspaper is close enough that I can walk to it, the same way I can walk to the university from my apartment, but there is no way I'm walking home from work after dark, not in this neighborhood. I'm working a split shift, nine in the morning until one, several hours off, then five to nine at night, which means it will be dark when I get off work. I can spend my spare afternoon hours in the library. It's only a few blocks away from the call center. But I can't sleep there overnight. The university's nearby student center isn't open around the clock, either. I'm the right age to be a student and probably still look vaguely collegiate, and if necessary, could crash on a couch on campus and pass convincingly for an exhausted student taking a nap, but I can't do that when the student center is closed for the evening. I have to go home at night. That means taking the bus, which means I need to hang onto what spare change I have. Each trip costs eighty-five cents.