So What

   Say you go into a woman’s apartment one morning.  How?  You just do is all.

      Inside, you hear water dripping in the bathroom.  You think: she forgot to turn it off because, well, she’s had things on her mind, mostly business, what with her having to close shop because of the COVID out there in the streets.

      Okay, so you go in the bathroom to check it out.  The water is dripping from the faucet in the shower, you see.  All over her.  She’s lying there, scrunched up at the bottom of the shower stall, her mouth and her eyes are open, and the water, it’s drip, drip, dripping on her like a kind of pathetic baptism, or something.

      So you take out a cigarette from the pocket of your shirt and you light it up and you look down at the body of this girl.  You’re standing there, smoking, watching the water dripping on her way skinny body, not making a move to shut it off, just watching.  Studying her down there, until you finish your cigarette and go into the living room for an ashtray to grind out the last ashes on the butt.

      There, you see her cat roaming around.  You never liked that mutt cat of hers, but during these rough times, she’s wanted somebody to keep her company, somebody who doesn’t argue or hassle her or chase its own tail like her mind has been doing when she’s trying to sleep.

      This cat, it’s meowing and it looks hungry and it’s sniffing around some empty plastic bottles and screw tops that are scattered on an oriental rug.  Well, the girl in the shower has been drinking of late, you know, so it figures.

      Medicine bottles, three of them, also empty, are lying open on a couch.  You study them too, for a while.

      Then you decide to light another cigarette, you inhale. Somebody should really clean up her mess, but maybe it’s best to leave things as is.

      Now, my questions here go something like this:

      There’s A:  Do you run out of the apartment, and tell the first person on the street that, hey, there’s a girl in an apartment up there who looks to be in pretty bad shape, do you have your smartphone on you so we can call the police?  Maybe there’s still some life in her, you say.

      Or, there’s B:  Do you walk, real calm like, from her place and go outside, thinking, hey, I’ve found dead bodies before, so what?  but I sure could use a cup of coffee just about now so I can figure out what to do next.

      A or B, my friend.  What’ll it be?

      Well, for me, it’s a solid B.

      Which leads to my next question: what you doing, thinking it anyway: so what?

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