Landlord

I can’t exactly remember who (ot why for that matter), but someone actually hurls me into the landlord’s office, here at the students lodge. I crash into a cupboard or something, and I can remember stuff breaking. The landlord helps me up on my feet. He never tells me to sit down in the chair in front of his desk, but I do anyway, and instantly regret it, because I know he was busy when I was thrown in here.

He asks me what’s on my mind, and I tell him I’ve got financial problems, which means I won’t be able to pay the rent this month. He’s wondering why, and I tell him I’m unemployed, but that I’m gonna start working in the near future. He gets really weird on me, he starts pulling my beard really hard, and sometimes he slaps me in the face. While doing this, he has a really friendly smile on his face, and his voice is calm and understanding. I feel uneasy as hell. Through a window high up on the wall I can see students walking through wind and snow. They’re making their way to and from a school building in the distance. They don’t look very pleased.

The landlord tells me there are lots of jobs around, lots of money too, and also a lot of poor and unhappy students. He gets a file out of a folder in his desk and starts reading from it, out loud. The file contains all information about me. I get really nervous. He asks me if I know that this is a students lodge, not a cheap hotel for unemployed people, still smiling and being too pleasant. I tell him yes, and I also tell him that if the fact that I’m not a student bothers him, he’s welcome to throw me out. He starts pulling my beard again, and I get so pissed off by it I tell him to go to hell. As I get out of the chair he says: «No, no, don’t worry, we even have people from Africa living here». I start laughing.

He then says it’s all fine, I can go on staying here, but he just needs his money.

I wake up.