CLEANING by Rebecca L. Brown

11/25/2010

This is the fourth time today she’s vacuumed that rug, running the upright back and fourth. She’d do it ‘til the carpet was threadbare if you let her, rubbing the bloody thing back and forth right through the concrete underneath.

Last week, when I left a cup ring on the dining room table, I thought she was going to hit me; she screwed up her hands into tight, white fists, her face reddening as her knuckles paled. I waited for her to speak, to shout, to throw things around, but she never did. The anger burst out of her and long streams of tears washed down her cheeks, dripping onto the linoleum as she shook from sobbing.

Afterwards, she scrubbed the floor with a short-haired brush and lemon-scented bleach.

Rebecca L. Brown specialises in horror fiction, although her writing often wanders off into other genres and gets horribly lost. To find more of Rebecca’s work, visit her blog http://bewilderingcircumstances.blogspot.com/

8 Comments

Dan Tricarico link

11/25/2010 02:42:59 am

While it bothers me that the canister-style vacuum being used in the graphic is incongruous with the "upright" mentioned in the story, I felt the picture was not only interesting stylistically, but that the decor in the photograph brought to a mind an era when women often felt less comfortable speaking their minds or sharing their emotions in a way that echoed that theme(s) in the story and that those feelings and impulses were often played out in such mundane tasks as housework. But enough about my mother. Discuss amongst yourselves. (Not you, Nike.)

Dan Powell link

11/25/2010 02:31:42 pm

As a homedad I can relate to the frustration here, though extreme. Impressive getting so much character (in both the narrator and she) in such a short space.

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4/16/2012 07:52:16 pm

To improve their ability, to benefit oneself and him. Have the ability to do practical things won't talk any benefits after all. The end of the story always return fully loaded, is a nurse nomination.

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