The apartment was tiny, but to Darcy and Cole, it was a kingdom.
Darcy had already picked out the corner by the sealed fireplace for her yoga routines. There, the light pooled golden for thirty minutes before slinking into shadows. She pictured a bamboo mat, maybe a fiddle-leaf fig, maybe an Instagram post tagged #GratitudeFromTheWestVillage.
She would expand her coaching brand, Positive Lifestyle Architect, from this very corner. Manhattan was her launchpad. All she needed was space to breathe.
Cole had humbler ambitions: write something. Anything. He planned to perch at the wobbly kitchen counter, punching out articles, maybe even starting the novel he kept re-editing in his mind. He had a shelf of exactly seven books—one of them a tattered Great Gatsby inscribed by his father: Never let them tell you what success is.
His father had been a failed writer who'd succeeded once. Cole wasn't even that.
The bedroom barely fit their queen-sized bed. The door scraped the mattress when it opened, turning entry into a slow dance of hip-and-pivot. A single grated window caught just enough moonlight to make the claustrophobia seem romantic.
They fell asleep that first night tangled together, breathing in sync for once.
Outside, the trees rustled gently.
Inside, the toilet murmured like a man remembering a war.
They almost believed they were safe.
Then the key turned in the lock.
Cole sat up. “Did you hear that?”
Darcy, half-asleep, swatted him in the chest and rolled over. “If this isn’t life or death, you just destroyed my circadian rhythm.”
“Darcy. Wake up. Someone’s in our apartment.”
“Maybe it’s the building settling.”
“The building is not settling into our apartment.”
A faint breath—slow, deliberate.
Then click. Buzz. The kitchen light flicked on.
Darcy bolted upright. “Is that… a grinder?”
Cole crouched behind the half-unpacked couch. “Are we getting robbed?”
“No one robs with a conical burr grinder. This is either murder or very expensive coffee.”
They peeked around the corner.
Omar.
Omar from After Everything I’ve Done For You Realty. Wearing sweatpants, a button-down shirt, and an expression like this was all deeply inconvenient for him.
Sparks flew from the grinder—a faint smell of scorched metal.
“OMAR?!” they shouted.
“Good evening,” he said calmly, not looking up.
“I apologize for waking you. Small error in paperwork. You must move out by six.”
“Six... A.M.?” Darcy squawked.
“Yes, yes. Very sorry. But new tenants are coming. I am preparing keys.”
“We have a lease,” Cole said.
Omar gave a diplomatic shrug. “New lease has been issued. Unfortunate miscommunication. Opportunity for you. Fresh start!”
He unplugged the grinder with care, smoothing invisible dust off the counter.
“This is old rule,” he explained gently. “Obscure. Subchapter Three, Clause 44B. In case of administrative error, occupancy reverts to—how you say?—best and final offer.”
Darcy’s jaw dropped. “That’s not a thing.”
“In New York,” Omar said with a smile, “everything is a thing.”
Cole stepped forward. “You can’t break into people’s homes at three a.m.”
Omar looked wounded. “My friend. Where I come from? Fifteen people sleep in one room. Sometimes sixteen if cousin visits. Goats too. Very cozy.”
He gestured fondly around the apartment. “This? This is luxury. And what is luxury if not to be shared with others who love it more?”
Darcy, twitching. “You’re evicting us... democratically?”
“Exactly!” Omar beamed. “The people speak. You know—democracy, capitalism, Craigslist.”
Cole raised his phone. “I’m calling the cops.”
Omar shrugged. “Police may come. Maybe they say, ‘Omar, bad man.’ Maybe they say, ‘Omar, practical thinker.’ Police in New York are very philosophical.”
“Cole, do something!” Darcy shrieked.
Cole froze. “You’re the one who helps people live their best lives.”
Darcy grabbed him by the shirt. “You’re the writer! There has to be a short story where this happens. Solve it like one of those little narrative puzzles you like so much!”
“You’re the Positive Lifestyle Architect. Build a solution!”
Darcy turned to Omar, vibrating with rage. “This is disgusting! I cannot believe how you’re behaving! I trusted you!”
Omar looked genuinely disappointed.
“You know,” he said softly, “when I small boy, we all gathered sitting together on the dusty floors to watch American television, dreaming of this life. Of American woman. Beautiful blonde. Eyes as blue as the sky. So confident. So free.”
Darcy blinked.
Omar continued: “Now I see—it is the nightmare. Angry. Yelling. Me first! I am very disillusioned. Like when you meet childhood idols and they smell like vinegar.”
Darcy screamed and lunged at him.
Cole shouted, “Darcy, no!”
Omar calmly sidestepped and unholstered a tiny pink pepper spray canister. Pssst!
Darcy staggered backward into Cole. Both collapsed.
A moment later, duct tape hissed from the kitchen. Before Darcy and Cole knew what was happening, they were tied back-to-back in the living room, blinking through watery eyes.
“Sorry to do this, but you artistic ones are always the most difficult!”
Omar then took a step back to admire his work, nodded approvingly, and turned toward the door.
"Come, please," he called.
The door swung open, and Tristan and Juan paraded in, dragging two massive Louis Vuitton suitcases and the tiny, furious Pekingese.
"AOC, honey, you're home!" Juan trilled.
They followed Omar eagerly into the apartment, clucking over the exposed brick, the "original fixtures,” and the "open concept kitchen.” They barely glanced at Cole and Darcy — who lay squirming, zip-tied on the floor, gagged with strips of their own pillowcases.
Tristan paused briefly, smiling at them.
“Oh my God, you guys!" Tristan chirped. "It's so cool to see familiar faces already. What a small world!"
“Well, here it is! It is not everything I told you!”
“It so is, Omar!”
“I go to war for my clients! After everything I’ve done for you!”
“So—just a heads up,” Juan said, leaning towards Darcy and Cole, “Tristan and I are moving forward with a formal complaint. Legal action, technically. For the unwanted sexual overture made in a public space.”
Darcy and Cole’s eyes widened. Juan offered nothing but a sympathetic smile as if announcing a charity bake sale.
“I mean, we laughed at the time, but trauma’s funny like that—delayed onset. You understand.”
AOC, the Pekingese, patrolled in slow circles around Darcy and Cole, her tiny paws clicking with militaristic precision. She paused every few steps to stare them down, growling softly at the first whimper or sigh as if daring them to blink wrong.
Tristan, now lighting a palo santo stick, chimed in without turning around. “It wasn’t even the suggestion of a throuple. It was the timing. Very aggressive. We were vulnerable. AOC hadn’t even peed yet.”
Juan nodded solemnly. “So yeah, hope you don’t mind. Nothing personal. Just cleansing the energy and also suing you a little.”
He patted Darcy on the knee like a nurse. “And don’t worry—we’ll keep it civil. Like, very civil court.”
“I’m thinking we knock this wall down,” Tristan said, gesturing at a structural column like a cult leader revealing where the portal opens. “Open the whole space up. Something with flow.”
Juan nodded, his arms crossed, the tension in his brow as severe as if the future of democracy hinged on this remodel. “Yes — knock down everything that feels ‘resistant.’ This apartment has emotional blockages.”
“Built-ins over here,” Tristan added, sketching wildly into a Moleskine. “A minimalist altar — something with lines.”
Juan clapped. “Oh my God — lines.”
AOC let out a single bark — high, sharp, judicial.
Juan pointed toward the sealed fireplace. “What if we turned that into a wet bar? Something elegant, but also slutty.”
“I like ‘slutty,’” Tristan said, flipping a page. “We should lean into slutty.”
Darcy let out a muffled grunt from her stool. AOC whipped her head toward her, teeth bared. Cole instinctively leaned forward to shield her — and was met with a guttural snarl from the floor.
“Don’t test her,” Juan warned. “She smells fear and capitalism.”
end of part two
© Michael Arturo, 2025
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Michael Arturo writes fiction, contemporary political/social commentary, parodies, parables, satire. Michael was born and raised in New York City and has a background in theater and film. His plays have been staged in New York, London, Boston, and Los Angeles.
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