Dust and the Wet and the Roar
Dust swirls within a sunbeam pouring in from a skylight set high in the ceiling. It’s a fascinating microscopic biosphere, a breeding ground for little beasts. I wonder what might exist unseen within this band of life that only appears on days when the sun shines. Today, though—today pregnant clouds will be moving in. Not only will it rain, but pour down while I stand inside this hollow house, my mind my only enemy.
Domesticity equals tranquility. I say it over and over as if somehow, with the words repeated, it will come true. That my hands are not dry and red, that my feet and back are not sore from the running and the scrubbing, surrounded by all of these things that are not mine, owned by someone else.
The house is a beacon within a shantytown. It towers over everything like a castle amongst the rubble. Even the rats don’t dare come near. They’re afraid of this place, of how clean it is.
Would life be better if I could swap bodies with the woman who writes my paycheck, so I could stalk about in heels and diamonds like some beauty queen, good for nothing but a pretty face, slender frame, pouty lips that quiver at the slightest poke and prod?
The image she cultivates for others is an illusion. Her tongue is sharp when there’s no one but us to hear. Us, her help. And by god, does she ever need it. Can barely lift a finger to get a new sparkly hoop on.
I’ve thought of a thousand ways to pin her against the wall and say “look here, Miss Greene.” That woman alone is the fuel that keeps my imagination running as I scrub her floors and wash her bloody sheets every month. I’ve thought of a thousand ways I want to kill her.
These days, she doesn’t even look at me. I’m so below her that I’m not even worth a gaze, slinking in the off-color world of the kitchen. She’ll shout, complain about the lack of crunch in her lettuce (imported because lettuce doesn’t grow in dust), or a smudge on the mirror. Her most violent outbursts are always over something trivial.
This time she’s found dust on the mantle. I’m staring at it now. I know I should dust it, that I’m getting paid to dust it, but there’s something about the look of it that I like. One dirty surface in an otherwise spotless mansion. I identify with it and want it to stay dirty, this little reminder of the world outside.
My mother taught me to clean. She’s always said, Lena, honey, you have got to scrub like your life depends on it. Because it does. I would help her all weekend when all I wanted to do was go to the park with my friends, but she wouldn’t have that. Idle time, she called it. The world had no time for it. At least we didn’t. But after five years employed by Mrs. Greene, watching a woman’s life full of idle time not spent in any kind of thoughtful way, I’d grown bitter.
“Lena?” Mrs. Greene calls me from the back room, sticking the post of some gaudy jewelry in her ear. It probably cost more than my entire year’s pay.
I have to breathe slowly to keep the edge out of my voice. “Yes, Mrs. Greene?”
Her heels clap toward me. “Why are you just standing there? Dust the mantle. You know Peter likes everything sparkling.” She isn’t looking at me as she says this; she’s looking out the window toward the flowers in the greenhouse out back, scowling.
“Yes ma’am,” I say and hold my breath until she walks away. I make toward the mantle like I’m going to do what she says and dust everything but.
Her daughter floats down the stairs in a gown covered in feathers. I wonder, If she’d been forced to pluck the beasts herself, would she still wear it?
I’m relieved when they leave, off to some fancy party. They’ll come home drunk on the fine liquor they get from who knows where. Coffers hidden from view, exclusively for the rich. We haven’t been able to find a drop of whiskey in months. There’ll be a fight, I know that sure enough. Someone will break a glass. It’ll be there in the morning when I get in. Evidence of the facade they flaunt and their friends who do the same.
I turn back to my dust and sigh before heading to the kitchen. Before I get there, I glance at the lilies wilting in their fine vase on the dining table. As the car pulls away, I drop the duster and take a welcome detour to the greenhouse where they’re in full bloom. The garden is the only place in this house worth a damn. Sprawling plants, all different varieties of white flowers, scattered between lush greens. It feels alien and out of place in the dust-covered world outside but beautiful all the same, thanks to Minnie. She walks in with her gloves every Saturday, trowel at the ready, each plant like a child she’s intent on honing to an idealized standard of perfection. I envy her. Her focused dance in dirty sneakers as she hauls water from the spigot in the corner. The way her hair is always on top of her head in an untidy bun, grey wisps floating around her face in the blue glow of the window panes. She’s a beautiful woman, reminds me of my own mother before she died, in her cutoffs and floral print shirts. The only ray of light on a Saturday morning. She’s an outsider, never stepping within the bounds of the house.
All of this concrete, the carefully placed ornamental pear. Mindful hands pulling weeds. The quiet care of others’ time to curate an illusion of perfection in a house, in a world that is anything but. I scoff, annoyed with myself for falling for this charm as I clip the fresh lilies to take them inside.
I arrange the flowers in a perfect bouquet, less for Mrs. Green’s approval than for my own. I hazard a look across the room, up toward the large ceiling of this cathedral I inhabit by day. It’s nothing like the crowded dorm we’re all forced to sleep in. The band of sunlight is still shining strong and I walk nearer to watch particles dancing up close, so bright and tight together it’s amazing they’re invisible most of the time. That dust is in my lungs. It will kill me early. Takes most babies before they have any hope of thriving at all. Some call it the devil dust, a thing sent up from hell to swallow us all, but I don’t know if I believe any of that.
I reach my hand through the ray of sunlight, hoping to feel the movement of the particles on my bare skin, but there is no sensation, only my own fantasy of it. I step toward the mantle and run a finger through the dust caked on its surface and toss it into the air.
I count the windows in the room. Eight in here alone. I walk toward the first one and open it wide, circle the house doing the same until the dust begins to blow in from all sides. The staircase railing is wide and wooden and I hold tight as I climb each step before lingering on the landing at the top. It still smells like flowers and perfume. Old-world shampoo. I start in the master bedroom and throw the curtains to the ground before pulling the windows wide open. Around and around. This feels more natural than any cleaning I’d done before. Cleanse the world of this one, disgusting anomaly. Let that mantle be nothing but a memory. Let these people be buried for denying the world they created.
I smile as the wind picks up, as if it understands my intention, as if I’ve called it. I let my hair down from its tight twist, pull the pins out and drop them to the floor. I take my shoes off and feel the dust between my toes. I pluck the lilies out from the vase and scatter them across the floor, save one which I stick behind my ear. I lie down on the mound forming in the kitchen and close my eyes, breath it in. Any energy I had to fight it is gone, because this isn’t for me. It’s for them. It’ll bury me slowly if I don’t get up soon, and I wonder if that’s the better option even as I stand.
The clouds roll overhead, roaring like they understand. The rain begins as slow misty fingers, turning the dust to thick grey sludge up to my shins and sloppy.
By midnight the floor is covered in dunes spread wide. If it weren’t for the walls and furniture, it would look just like the wasteland outside, and I’m proud of my work.
I wait until they get back, and pass Mrs. Greene on the way out. “Goodnight, Ma’am,” I say, unable to stifle that smile. I’m almost to the road when I hear her scream. I pick up my pace, running through dust-mud with bare feet. I tie my bandana over my face to keep my lungs clean as I can, though I know it doesn’t work so well. I call out to the ghost of my mother, part of the dust now like all the rest. I can feel their energy pulsing beneath my feet with every step.
“I beat them!” I shout, as if someone is around to hear, but every shack is shuttered tight against the dust and the wet and the roar of the world. I know I can’t go back to the dorm or they’ll find me, but none of that seems to matter now. I’ve taken control of the one thing they’re afraid of. The dust—my ally.