“Could you try to be a bit tidier?” said Quiff to Glasses, gesturing at the kitchen worktop as Moustache looked on.
The worktop was clear save for a table knife and a wrapper from a teabag. The knife had been there since the previous day, but a thin paper line had been crossed in the teabag’s slender green sleeve, and suddenly the situation was untenable.
“Yeah.” he replied, before walking from the kitchen and out of the front door.
“In fairness to Glasses, the bin is overflowing again,” offered Moustache, “and you never empty it.”
“It’s his calm that gets me. I can’t stand his nonchalance.”
***
The following day the knife had been removed and the teabag wrapper dispatched to behind the sofa, but a wooden spoon had mysteriously appeared on the counter. Unlike the knife, the spoon had left a ring of sauce on the counter beneath it, and soon enough Quiff was back on the case.
“Stop leaving stuff on the counter.”
“I haven’t eaten yet.” said Glasses calmly.
“So it’s from yesterday. Clean it up.”
“Ok.” Said Glasses as he sauntered out.
***
The following day, the kitchen counter lay fallow, with neither of the three cooking, Glasses eating at a friend’s house, Moustache away on another ambiguous escapade, and Quiff ordering pizza, the box for which was soon thrown into the utility room next to bin. The day after however, the counter was once more compromised, this time with a few small crumbs of cheese, another teabag wrapper, and two knives, one with a thin veil of jam on one side.
Glasses opened the door to see an indignant Quiff on the threshold.
“Could you clean the counter please”
“Ok, but only once you fuck off.”
Quiff’s fists clenched as the door closed, but he was forced to calm himself by Moustache’s arrival.
“Everything alright?” he asked gently.
***
This pattern continued for a couple more weeks, relations becoming ever more strained, until one fateful Thursday, a sugar coated teaspoon, two teabag wrappers, the same table knife as before, and a pizza crust was left on the side. As misfortune would have it. Quiff and Glasses both found themselves in the kitchen at the same time, despite their best efforts to avoid one another.
“Glasses! Clean your shit up!”
“That isn’t mine. I don’t take sugar in my tea.”
“Stop lying and just pull your finger out!”
“Empty the bin.”
“FUCK. OFF.”
“I’m going to go to the pub. Enjoy your spring cleaning.”
It had become too much for Quiff. He couldn’t take his lackadaisical indolent nature any more.
He slid the knife off the side of the counter and plunged it into Glasses’ left shoulder.
Glasses sunk to the floor.
“What the fuck have you done that for you little bitch!?” Â he yelled, desperately trying to examine the wound.
“CLEAN THE FUCKING COUNTER!”
“I’m going to go hospital first if that’s ok…”
***
Quiff and Glasses were evicted by the end of the week, with Quiff serving a two year suspended sentence for assault. Moustache’s partner moved into one of the spare rooms the following week, and they sat smugly, drinking sweet tea and eating homemade pizza in the third room for many years to come.
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