Kicking out Alcoholic, Narcissist and Miser

A short story on how an old house in Mumbai tries to get rid of its tenants.

This was the third time this week that the Narcissist, the Miser, and the Alcoholic were holed up in their respective rooms, lights shut at 10:30 pm. The three who would regularly sleep and shut their lights at odd periods after midnight, were now wary of their own tube lights since those attracted ‘Winged Termites’.

The house of the Narcissist, the Miser, and the Alcoholic was old but the Alcoholic liked calling it vintage. That stopped when the alleged ‘vintage’ wooden structure produced winged termites that came out at 10:30 pm every night to attack and crawl under any source of light they could find.

The flying termites were regular and like clockwork went back to sleep every dawn, unlike the other three inhabitants of the house.

The miser didn’t have her own room, so she had to resolve to protect her in the makeshift ‘room’ consisting of a curtain and an old sofa in the hall. The Narcissist made videos about the attacks and tried to find a resolution by making the owner aware of his dwindling property.

The alcoholic, having earlier lost all confidence in the owner and his doubtful attempts to help them due to an old fight, started researching termite colony creation and particularly searched ‘how the hell did termites develop wings’. She was hoping to discover their nest so that she could kill the termites herself.

But the termites were just an omen. The houses in Mumbai make it very clear when they get tired of their humans. In this case, the next attempt at kicking the three out came as a ‘Heritage Building structure’ legal notice. The vintage building where the vintage House resided, being 99 years old made the other flat owners frantic in their attempts to break it or to say politely re-construct it before it turns 100. A 100-year structure by law gains some bizarre immunity against construction.

Out of all the flat owners, one old Parsi lady refused to sign the reconstruction documents so for now the vintage building managed to blow its 100th year candles.

The house had already tried its two courses of attack- Natural and Legal.

Now it changed its tactics to something a little more out of the chapters of Sun Tzu’s ‘The art of War’

First it came for the Narcissist.

The Narcissist was cheating on her Fiancé. The Fiancé being in the Army, was away for long periods. The Alcoholic wanting to separate herself from the drama ignored the men walking in and out of the Narcissist’s room regularly. Miser used to cook together with Narcissist and during these kitchen sessions, Miser tried best to reason out with the Narcissist that what she was doing was not ‘that’ morally or ethically fucked up. They both agreed on the fact that cheating fueled by loneliness was just an act of desperation.

The Alcoholic being exactly opposite to this school of thought, still found it easier to just ignore.

Everything worked out well, that is until the House realized, Narcissist believed in ‘Signs’

Every time she would now enter the kitchen she could smell leaking gas. The other two girls too were dragged into smelling the nooks and crannies of the cylinder but could never smell anything.

But the Narcissist was not wrong. The Alcoholic has an undiagnosed clogged sinus that she hadn’t taken seriously in months and the miser couldn’t smell the leaking gas because her brain told her nose not to take the leak seriously. If she did, they would have to buy a new gas pipe. And gas pipes are expensive.

Miser was a special Miser. She lived up to her name to the point that even a possible gas explosion couldn’t deter her personality trait.

3 days later when Narcissist was cooking alone in the kitchen she mentioned the gas leak to her mother on call. Her mother, who had given the gift of ‘believing the signs’ to her daughter immediately notified the daughter about the dangers. You see Narcissist’s mother did not talk about ‘explosion danger’ but how smelling gas was an omen of bad marriage life and possible death to the adulterer.

Not the many interventions of Miser but this remark by her mother brought Narcissist back to the road of loyalty.

A week later she had left the house and had started living with her would-be ‘in-laws’.

One point to the House. Zero to the humans.

The house decided the Miser was next. Miser was the easiest for the house. And the most fun too. For this resident, it just had to trigger a chain of events.

Every resident there had their share of sins, but the Miser might just have expertise in all seven. Probably the reason why, the House punished her more severely than others.

One month into the Narcissist leaving, the Miser was introduced to the Alcoholic’s boyfriend. The introduction to no surprise took place under the haze of a small alcohol-supplied get-together.

A get-together of just three.

Just these three, on the sofa, inside the House.

All would have gone well, had Miser and the Alcoholic’s boyfriend not forgotten one small detail. The Alcoholic had an alter ego.

The Insomniac.

Or perhaps it was the House who made sure they forgot and also gave them the guts to do what they did next.

It was the Insomniac who waited a total of 15 minutes behind her frosted glass door to catch the other two parties red-handed or should we say hands-inside each other's pants on the sofa at 3 am.

The Boyfriend was dragged out of the House and the Insomniac conspired to drag out the Miser next.

The morning after, the Alcoholic cried and hugged the Miser and told her that she knew her Boyfriend was a serial womanizer and absolved her of all guilt. But in truth, the alcoholic could have hugged Miser’s neck no sooner.

And it did happen soon, as she tied the noose of an electricity bill around the Miser’s neck.

Miser left the office for the office first and the Alcoholic came back from the office first. This timeline made it perfect for the Alcoholic to switch on the AC and make it run throughout the day in an empty house.

15 days later the electricity bill which was split between the three usually was now split between the two of the residents. But this bill was special, it was four times the original. The Alcoholic happily paid her share and also hinted to the Miser that since summer is worse this year, this bill was going to be the new normal.

The next thing she did was to tell the Miser that she was going to get pest control to treat the termites and asked for her share of it. The Miser asked to stall for a few days commenting on how the termites were note as frequent as before. It was true but the Alcoholic made sure that they were going to get the treatment done.

One more crazy electricity bill later, the Miser decided to leave.

Strike two for the House.

The Alcoholic, now was the last remaining contender for the House.

The Alcoholic now needed to find two new flatmates fast. If she didn’t, she would have to pay the rent of the whole House alone. She was well-off…but not that well-off to afford the whole of it.

The House knew, she would be the most difficult and had kept her for the final stage.

She made 15 people come and look at the beautiful House in just 3 weeks. She placed the best bids and made sure her situation with choosing the new flatmates went exactly opposite to ‘beggars can’t be choosers’

Then, all 15 refused.

She couldn’t understand and she wouldn’t have been able to even if she tried because the House played its tricks even before the new probable tenants entered inside.

This is the list of some of the reasons why tenants refused.

1.       The people who wanted this house because it's close to their office; every time faced the worst traffic on the bridge that led to the house and to add, none of the cab drivers would ever agree to go towards the direction of the House.

2.        The people who made it to the apartment building, always faced two half-naked women quarrelling on one floor below the House. (The Alcoholic had never seen them or heard them in her one-year stay)

3.       The leftover people faced the biggest shock; greetings from an alcoholic beggar who hogged on them when they tried to enter the building hallway. He begged them for money and tried grabbing their wrist. But that was just until the last probable tenant the Alcoholic could find, vanished. With that, the mysterious alcoholic beggar (the Alcoholic had never seen them or heard of him in her one-year stay), like clockwork also vanished without a trace.

With only a week left to renew the lease, the Alcoholic gave up. In a week, the House was going to be finally free.

That is, until the old Parsi lady who had not signed the reconstruction papers yet, suddenly did. Apparently, the sudden entry of a wild beggar and crazy half-naked women into her calm and serene life, had knocked some senses into her.

The day the Alcoholic left the house was the day the other residents agreed that the whole building needed to be broken and re-constructed.

Especially the vintage House.

Human 1.

Human won .

FIN