When you live alone, always is easier to keep things controlled. You’re conscious about how much food you’ve really used, you can notice how much have you spent on energy, water or gas, you can know almost exactly where the things you used can be found and, even when it can have some difficulties and challenges, is undeniable that it has its advantages.
Last year, I've been so centered into my job that i was unabled to plan some vacation days which i could use to relax. The company provide us of so many benefits that i could save enough money to even have a trip to another country as a tourist, but, as i said, I wasn’t able to plan anything, so i just decided to rest at home as much as possible, I've earned it, I had been living only for working during too much time.
In fact, most time i used to be too tired, i spent a little part of the money i gained by hiring someone who does the home tasks i did not wanted to do, whether it was for time, or energy, like clean the house, cook or even do the shopping. Bills got paid directly through the bank, so i not even needed to take a look on it.
I simplified my life as much as possible to focus myself just on my job, but that meant that i was not conscious of many of those things. I used to eat at work, even for breakfast and for lunch, and the dinner was always waiting already prepared at home. But i always find out a bit curious the fact that always there were way more food that i was able to eat, however, i thought the home helper left something for her for the next day, and i didn’t really cared about that, it wasn’t a problem for me.
Well, during first vacation days, the first thing i did was going to do the shopping, choose some things i liked the most to eat the next days and carry them home. I cooked by myself during some days, but cleaning the house was something i really didn’t want to do anyway, so, i commissioned it to someone else. Surprisingly, the food that, based on my calculations, should last at least one week, was over in three days. When the assistant came, i asked her if she had come and taken something, but she assured me immediately that she doesn’t and that, in fact, she had never taken anything from my house.
The memory of that there was always too much prepared food came to my mind and i asked about it then, just for knowing what she did with all that daily. I didn’t care about it if she took it for herself, but the idea of throwing it away was really unpleasant, so, i wanted to know what she used to do with everything left untouched in the fridge daily. Her answer left me confused. There was never any food left for the next day. She always found all the containers empty. I also remembered the numerous calls from random people, strange people, asking for someone else, and me answering that they had called to the wrong number, yet some protested that they had talked to that person from that phone number a few days before.
My mind then evoked those stories in which ones a stranger sneak into the house, hides and lives at the expense of his hosts, as if he were a parasite, and in order to document everything, i installed some cameras in key places in my house, and waited for the night for things to just happens, meanwhile, i could see how my personal phone was full of activity that i didn’t recognize, lot of outcoming calls of variable length, music files i hadn’t remembered to acquire, even an email account different from my own, active on my device, and even social networks. Until that moment, I simply hadn’t noticed it.
I slept restlessly, the little managed to sleep, with the fear in my body, of course, and the next day, I wanted to review the images obtained at night. What I saw shocked me entirely: When I fell asleep, after about fifteen minutes or so, I got out of bed, went to the bathroom, then went to the fridge and ate something, took my phone and talked and laughed for a long time with several people, watched TV and so on, until almost dawn. Then I got back into the bed and after about fifteen minutes, I got up again and started the routine I just performed by myself this morning.
The stranger in my house was myself, at least, a myself that I didn’t know, and after thinking about how lonely I am and how differently we spend our time, apparently, his life was much happier than mine