Environment 1: Raatuse 22

Keeping up is harder than I thought. It will be easier to flesh out spatially, instead of chronologically. Home is a good place to start:

Raatuse 22, Room 638. Rooms 637 and 639 are to the left and right, uninhabited. Returning to the flat there is a tension, of expectation and hope, and always a relieving sigh that we are still alone. I wonder how long it will be until we can be certain? The place does echo strangely, though, so empty.

The floors are concrete, I think, with some kind of rubbery sealant painted over them. Perfectly flat, like a gymnasium,and gray of course. Everything is gray: the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the trim. Even the refrigerator takes on a grayish cast. We keep the lights off. Cold fluorescence is entirely unsuitable for living quarters. The stove light is enough to see by in the kitchen and a small paper lantern with a 60 watt bulb warms up our room. The shower is in a room opposite the kitchen, one big room with a dip in the floor where the curtain keeps in shower spray. A sink and a mirror with a light above it drip with condensation, but it dries quickly. The walls are white tile and the floor is hospital blue. The toilet and another sink are in a separate room, just to the right of the front door. I think I like not having a toilet where I bathe.

The kitchen was at first a source of anxiety, but I am adjusting to its peculiarities. There is no oven, in fact a vast emptiness beneath the counter suggests it may have been surgically removed. The "stove", referred to in the housing contract as a "cooker", is a two burner affair, larger in the back and small in the front. They get tremendously hot and take forever to cool down but so far they have been even and reliable. The cabinets are bright red, counter tops gray, and there is also a table with two yellow stools. The table is gray. We had a few of Tyler's fellow students over and one of them likened the place to a hospital. It is an accurate appraisal.

BUT, despite its hospitality it is comfortable, warm, and the few decorative touches I have acquired and arranged go a long way. The refrigerator is cold, the view from our room is spectacular, the whole place is spotless and will be easily kept clean, and so far I see no evidence of insects, rodents, or mold. The whole building has a network of ventilation systems connected to each room in the flat by a round vent. It makes the subtle, dampened sound that permeates the recesses of large institutional buildings--state offices, schools, libraries--when they are very silent. I have always appreciated the sound, listening to it for long minutes in school bathrooms and between huge shelves of books, and found it calming. It is, I realize only now, the ambient sound of starships.