Philosopher

I walk into the room and throw my stuff unceremoniously on his bed. He doesn't even look up from the book he is reading, some dialogue on philosophy, the usual nonsense he reads. Philosophy. As if real people like me, who have real jobs, can just afford to sit around reading poetic discourses written by some two thousand year old Greek.

"You're back," he mutters.

I don't bother replying. I walk to the fridge instead. I dig past behind the bottles of beer and find a pastry. There are eggs, I could cook them for dinner, I process mentally as I stuff the pastry into my face. I turn around to look for my laptop. There's no point in wasting time. Might as well get to work.

"Why are you here?" he asks, this time looking up from his book.

Because I'm stupid. Stupid. I think to myself.

"Because I owe your mother a favour," I say aloud, shortly.

"So you've come here, to watch me, as a favour for my mother?" he says, rolling his eyes.

Again, I refrain from replying to Captain Obvious. I just open my laptop and wait while it hums and hos, taking its time to get started.

"You have a job. And a place to stay...why are you even here?" he says. He's shut his book. He's sitting on the futon, his arms folded across his chest.

"Why are you still in your pajamas?" I counteracted.

"Answer me," he says imperiously.

I sigh and type in my security password, "You don't have to worry. This is just a temporary arrangement."

"I'm not worried,' he says with some sort of finality. He gets up and opens the fridge. He peers inside for five seconds before he turns around, "Is there any food in the fridge?"

"There would be if you went out and bought some," I mutter as I wait for my Outlook inbox to open.

Captain Obvious doesn't have a reply to that so he lounges over back to the futon and flops down on it.

I focus my eyes on my laptop screen, trying to scroll through the 377 new emails I have accumulated in my inbox, but I can't help it and I steal a glance at him. 

He looks so sad. So alone. His face is all angles and pain. His body looks tired and his hair hasn't been combed in days. It angered me so much. He angered me so much. I just really wanted to throw something at his stupid face. No, not my laptop. It may be ancient, but it was expensive, and it is my lifeline, especially now that I'm expected to stay in this hellhole. I couldn't bear to look at him like this. I couldn't bear to look at him at all.

I sigh, audibly, and I return to my laptop screen, "I'll make eggs for dinner, later, if you'll have them."

"You don't have to do it. Any of it. I know you're doing this for my mother. I know she means a lot to you and she really does like you, she does. But you don't have to do any of this," he says, looking at the ceiling. 

This is probably the most he's spoken at a stretch, in the entire week.

I close Outlook and open my browser instead, "Do you want to have eggs for dinner?" I ask.

"Yes, eggs are good," he mumbles.

"Good," I say nonchalantly, opening Gmail. I am not even going to bother to come up with an answer to what he said because he is so stupid, and I would be insulting my intelligence if I had to answer that. And besides, between the two of us, I'm the one who is the philosopher.