The apartment is not big by any stretch of the imagination.

It is only one room, really. Boxes take up much of the space; stacked together, piled high one on top of the other. Their contents – all the worldly possessions of the apartment’s sole owner, Jocelyn ‘Joss’ Garnier – shoved in to bursting. Blankets, glass jars, pieces of string with random knickknacks attached to the ends, incense candles, various cultural paraphernalia from all over the globe, all of every color of the rainbow, squeezed into skyscraper like mounds of brown squares. Like a flimsy cardboard fortress they guard the interior of the tiny room, pristine white plaster walls barely seen over their towering tops. They almost touch the ceiling with their dog-eared edges and the drop down is steep. One move, one slight incline over and the contents of the boxes would come crashing down on the wood floor, probably to break or chip or deform their weighty contents in some way. They would tumble over the surprisingly clean floor and possibly right on top of Jocelyn, lying with her back pressed against the cool wooden tiles. Papers are littered around her – crumpled up pieces torn from notebooks, loose-leaf, and pages. They circle around in a small cluster, nearly hiding the owner of the apartment from view, tossed about in an unorganized mess. Some white pages droop over the edge of the glass table she lays haphazardly half under, shoulder barely grazing one of the stainless steel legs.

The polished black fountain pen in her hand is tipped upside down, trapped between two loose fingers, tapping a steady rhythm on the pad of paper she holds up on her stomach just below her chest. The long dark straps of a camera are tangled around her neck and leading like a curving, wavy river across her other shoulder, to the floor were the good sized camera itself sits amidst a couple of old Polaroid pictures.

The space they occupy is cramped, cluttered. The couch is only big enough to fit someone small scrunched up sideways so it’s a good thing Joss is only five foot four. But she doesn’t often use the couch so maybe that’s a good thing too. Comfy as the white leather may be it is still patched and frayed in some areas, snowy wounds covered over with large globs of silver duck tape. It looks ready to collapse in on itself any minute now and just might should Jocelyn ever choose to use it. The too-large-comforter folded neatly on one arm is the single indication she may or may not have been responsible for the damage already inflicted on the couch; simply one tiny body curled up and sleeping. She bought it from a garage sale so she wasn’t surprised. That’s kind of what she expects.

There’s another small table in the corner beside the couch, the only spot in the room with a lack of messiness. It’s sole occupants are postcards, their flashy colors and cheesy greeting lined faces standing out starkly against the washed out color of the room. They brag off many places, many scenes varying from beaches to city streets, from California to Italy to one small, miniscule town that the majority of the world’s population have never heard of. That one is the only one with a note scribbled on it, turned over so the side with the writing faces up. Black, sticky fingerprints cloud the corners. There are smears around the edges. The handwriting is blocky and much too large, written painstakingly by someone who Jocelyn knows never voluntarily tries to. The ink is smudged and running, probably by the same knocked over glass of water that lies empty at the corner, threatening to fall off the side. Underneath it all a map, spread out and wrinkled, with more brown water strains than could ever have been supplied by one cup filled with water. Some parts are bent awkwardly where Joss folded them and decorated with tiny constellations of exes and ohs, as if for some demented game.

Jocelyn’s shoes are tossed in before the front door. They’re dirty and worn; shoe laces with frayed edges and mismatched colors. There’s no welcome matt as far as the natural eye can see. There’s an over-stuffed, overly long tie dyed pillow collapsed against one wall of boxes with WELCOME written in bold, blocky psychedelic lettering but when Jocelyn stretches out her foot the message crumples further inward. Besides, the way it’s positioned, only people peeking in the front window would see it. No one else will come along to get it anyway.