See two girls: one nineteen, the other twenty. They’re both engineering students far from home, and they both need to take summer classes to graduate on time. However, neither has a place to stay.

See two guys they met at a party: both twenty, roommates. One is a biology student, the other a welding apprentice. They offer to put the girls up in their apartment for the summer, while they go to Europe to find themselves—apparently this is something that happens often. They love Milan in late May whereas the girls, desperate beyond sense, love cheap rent with utilities included.

See the apartment on the day they move in: odd. There’s no working water. There are no windows either, but this seems to be compensated for by dozens of framed nature photographs on every wall. One of the bedrooms has a slanted floor, each furniture leg held in place by a doorstop, while the other has no furniture at all, just a mattress against the far wall with an expensive-looking silk duvet cover. The bathroom has a bit of mold, but they’re not going to think about that.

See a problem: the next day, at six in the morning, the landlord knocks on the door. He’s a short old man with a long gray beard that’s slicked into a curl at the end, and he asks the girls to find and fix a pipe that’s gone missing from the basement—apparently this is something that happens often. It seems there was some agreement between him and the welder, and if they were going to continue to sublet “peacefully,” they were going to hold up his end of the bargain. Neither girl is thrilled to have to trudge around in a dank cellar on top of a full courseload, but neither wants to say that, and so they timidly agree.

See a solution: after searching for the missing pipe and calling the welder many times, both unsuccessfully, the girls find the phone number of a local plumber. When they tell the plumber the address of the apartment, he becomes extremely excited. In quick bursts of speech, he explains that he was in a long-term exclusive casual relationship with the landlord, and that while they were together he would service the building for free, but that he was ghosted with no explanation. Supposedly, the girls’ call is a sign of a new beginning; he would be over shortly.

See the consequences of one’s actions: the plumber and the landlord argue loudly in front of the apartment building. The plumber pleads for the landlord’s forgiveness, and admits to stealing the pipe in order to get his attention. The landlord confesses to cheating on the plumber with a tenet, says that the level of love and attention he gave him was scary and that he disappeared because he couldn’t forgive himself. The plumber says that he loves the landlord with his whole heart, but that he can’t be with a cheater. The landlord says that he’d always miss the plumber’s unifying sense of justice in a cruel, cruel world, and slams the door on him. Leaning against it, he falls apart. The pipe remains missing, as a memorial to days past.

See a descent into madness: the landlord spends the next few days in the girls’ apartment. Taking over the bedroom with the slanted floor, he demands attention, cries in long bouts, and refuses to leave. He even knows his way around—apparently this is something that happens often. It’s uncomfortable, but the nineteen-year-old feels responsible for reopening a closed wound, and the twenty-year-old worries what might happen if they don’t oblige. At night they help him into bed and in the morning they handwash his tear-stained pillow.

See the universe collapse in on itself: A few days becomes a week, which becomes two. Spending hours each day comforting the depressed landlord, the girls begin to fail their classes. They are given money to buy food, but less and less each day. The pipe is still missing, so water has to be stolen from an outdoor spigot three buildings down. The nineteen-year-old swears the nature photographs are multiplying, and the twenty-year-old sends dozens of obscene paragraphs to the welder that she knows he won’t read. The final straw is exam day, when the girls find textbook pages ripped out and crumpled into balls in a pile in the corner of the bedroom. They had run out of tissues.

See the end of a story: enough is enough. While the landlord struggles to climb into the bed in the slanted room, the girls kick out the doorstops holding the dresser in place. He almost dies, and after lengthy proceedings they are given a far nicer place to stay. It even has a window.