In this country fire alarms aren't mandatory. So when it's night and I don't have any furniture in my apartment and the sink leaks and the haunting tune of the city's ambulances rush past my window I don't have to listen to the beeps of a fire alarm on low battery. I don't have to whistle to it until I get the right pitch. A human on low battery.

 

In this country people put a lot of stuff in a little place. So when I don't have anything my place looks big and all the people come to tell me what a good deal it is to be so empty. 

 

But if I was at someone else's place with their three year old news papers and their model building with King Kong swinging from the peak and their little black hairs and their records without a record player and their brushes and blankets and cheese wrappers and shark teeth and bondage gear on the seventh floor with no  elevator and the building caught fire because it turns out you can't really trust people on low batteries to beep when they leave their cigarette on a roll of toilet paper and  fall asleep in front of the computer screen, then I'd be obliged to jump.