You see a man on the street sweeping. His cap covers his face. He does not move when you look at him, but if you stare too long you can see his eyeless sockets staring into your soul. The sockets are black, empty, hungry. You do not stare at him again.
You take the trash to a dumpster outside your house at the same time as all your other neighbors. All of you lift the lid with synchronization, deposit the trash, and then walk into to your homes, never looking back. The garbage truck never comes. No one ever comes.
The smell of chemicals permeates the air. You haven’t started cleaning yet and can’t remember when you first smelt the chemicals. After weeks, the smell is still there. The smell of chemicals never goes away. It has always been and will always be.
There’s a bottle of OxiClean in the middle of all of the other cleaning supplies. You didn’t buy any OxiClean; you’ve never bought OxiClean. You’ve never seen OxiClean being sold. Billy Mays begins to scream at you from within the bottle.
You spray window cleaner on your window. The liquid coming out is red. You try to wipe it off, but it’s on the other side of the glass. A hand slams onto the window and slides down.
When dusting a shelf above your head, the duster falls out of your hand and disappears where you can’t see it. You reach to find it, but only touch rough, scaly hide. You grab it and use it to finish dusting.
Under the bed, there are spiderwebs. So many spiderwebs, covering everything, but no spiders. Why are there so many spiderwebs? Where are all the spiders?
The vacuum comes unplugged but doesn’t stop sucking. The cords tangle around your feet and then around your entire body. You swear the vacuum has started to hiss.
You use an unlabeled bottle to clean your toilet. The liquid shrieks when it touches water. It is dying. You are dying. You close the lid and leave.
You go through a box of stuff saved from your childhood. You pull out some ribbons and realize there’s more. You keep pulling out ribbons. Where are they all coming from? You didn’t win this many ribbons. You keep pulling them out. The words on the ribbons turn from English to Chinese, to Arabic, and then to some ancient language long forgotten. You keep pulling out ribbons. You cannot stop. They do not stop.
A person of nondescript gender shows up at your door in a maid’s outfit. They tell you they are there to clean your house, but they don’t move their mouth to speak. You notice their skin is waxy and invite them in. They don’t move, they only stare at the space to the right of your head with unblinking, coal black eyes.
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