He moved into the basement on 54th to escape a set of well-meaning parents and a pet bird with a squawk markedly similar to the sound of a woman in pain.
The roommates hung sheets around the large, cement-floored, wood-paneled room to section it off. Every morning he woke up with a headache from the previous evening’s one too many. Every morning the dry basement air caused him to cough up a surprising amount of phlegm. Every morning he woke up feeling dead and found that he could walk through the walls around him. (ms)
