Written on 4 January 2019
Our first home together. Two up, two down, and a garage to boot.
Seven years of savings plus a generous donation from Mia's parents and we were signed up to a mortgage we'd never pay off so we could live in the ‘burbs.
Our problems began when we went to move the Christmas decorations into the attic. It was empty, but for a dusty sheet covering something bulky. It was a massive flipping pinball machine.
Six months later, and I was hooked. I have no idea how it got up here, because we certainly couldn't get it down. So we set it up on the makeshift floorboards in the attic. And that's where I spent almost all of my spare time.
Pinball would infiltrate my dreams. I would be the ball, then the flippers, then the scoreboard overseeing the whole thing, my numbers always ticking up. It was all I could think about at work, so I quit that.
Mia was initially keen to get involved, but after a year she had given up on even yelling at me. She wouldn't even come and say hi when she got in from work, and when I would descend to bed in the early hours, she would pretend to be asleep.
And then she locked me in the attic.
And that's where I stayed.
Playing Pinball.
Until I died of thirst.