There’s something living in the washing machine. It whistles at night.
You’ve never seen snow before. You imagine the whistling of ice-laden wind sounds like the whistling in the washing machine. At night, you lay in bed, staring at the beams in your ceiling, and think of snow. You also think of sunlight through a water glass. Specifically, the water glass you left on the dinner table the other day, liquid pooling at the bottom, a spasming fly floating on the surface. The banality of the image disgusts you. It smells like wood shavings of an empty house and looks like yellow dust particles catching afternoon sun, filling the space with their own aimlessness.
You shift in your bed, listening to the house creak as the wind outside rages against it. This, you note, with a tightness in your chest, is highly unusual. The air at night, at dawn, at day, in the afternoon, in the evening, in the brief sliver of time when you are not entirely depressed by your earthly form and its earthly surroundings, is always still. It is a plastic wrap held over the sky, absorbing every hot breath that leaves your body.
You lift yourself out of bed, feet recoiling from the cold wooden floor. You approach the walls, each step straining against the house’s muscles. You place a hand against the plaster. Then another. The chill against your palms shocks you and you pull away, fast, rubbing them together.
Looking around the room, you see, for the first time, the pooling of bluish darkness in every corner. The house creaks again and seems to sway. You rock with it, holding yourself by the arms, hoping to squeeze some warmth back into your body. Instead, all you feel is a clenching in your chest, like a thousand tiny fingers digging past your human body towards something else.
You press your weight into the door and, after throwing yourself against it twice, the bottom screeching against the floor and carving into the wood, it opens. A cloud of dust erupts from the violence of your movement. It catches in your throat, needling at your vocal chords. You cough, breaking the silence, and it’s so loud you could cry.
The stairs whine with each step. You are realizing, slowly, how delicate the house is, and how much it hurts to be delicate with it. There is no longer any safety in staying here. Is there any way to get out? The thought seizes you. You’ve never wanted to get out before, but you’ve also never felt so fragile before. Here, in the dark, wind rattling the windows, slats trembling in the storm, you reach for an answer — a single truth that will burn and swallow you whole. Your body vibrates as a thousand images pass behind your eyes — grass, wind, open water, open space. The open space shines more brightly than the others, with color, sound, sensation. You think it’s because you’ve never been able to run and you want to, badly, until it takes over and you are robbed of breath and of reason.
You open your eyes. The darkness is somehow brilliant, and then you hear it.
The house is whispering and the house is telling you, “The matches are in the kitchen drawer, second from the right.” You reach over with hands that have never been so still, so calm, and rummage through pens, old labels, bag clips, until the matchbox’s dappled texture grazes your fingertips and a chill rushes through you.
At first, you are afraid. Then, without knowing why or how, you are brave.
It catches fire easily, as if it’s been waiting for a very long time to go up in flames.
You watch from afar in the blistering cold, watching and staring as the house is eaten up by the fire, the floorboards licked at, every last scrap of plaster savored until the very end.
You’ve never seen snow before. You imagine the whistling of ice-laden wind sounds like the whistling in the washing machine. At night, you lay in bed, staring at the beams in your ceiling, and think of snow. You also think of sunlight through a water glass. Specifically, the water glass you left on the dinner table the other day, liquid pooling at the bottom, a spasming fly floating on the surface. The banality of the image disgusts you. It smells like wood shavings of an empty house and looks like yellow dust particles catching afternoon sun, filling the space with their own aimlessness.
You shift in your bed, listening to the house creak as the wind outside rages against it. This, you note, with a tightness in your chest, is highly unusual. The air at night, at dawn, at day, in the afternoon, in the evening, in the brief sliver of time when you are not entirely depressed by your earthly form and its earthly surroundings, is always still. It is a plastic wrap held over the sky, absorbing every hot breath that leaves your body.
You lift yourself out of bed, feet recoiling from the cold wooden floor. You approach the walls, each step straining against the house’s muscles. You place a hand against the plaster. Then another. The chill against your palms shocks you and you pull away, fast, rubbing them together.
Looking around the room, you see, for the first time, the pooling of bluish darkness in every corner. The house creaks again and seems to sway. You rock with it, holding yourself by the arms, hoping to squeeze some warmth back into your body. Instead, all you feel is a clenching in your chest, like a thousand tiny fingers digging past your human body towards something else.
You press your weight into the door and, after throwing yourself against it twice, the bottom screeching against the floor and carving into the wood, it opens. A cloud of dust erupts from the violence of your movement. It catches in your throat, needling at your vocal chords. You cough, breaking the silence, and it’s so loud you could cry.
The stairs whine with each step. You are realizing, slowly, how delicate the house is, and how much it hurts to be delicate with it. There is no longer any safety in staying here. Is there any way to get out? The thought seizes you. You’ve never wanted to get out before, but you’ve also never felt so fragile before. Here, in the dark, wind rattling the windows, slats trembling in the storm, you reach for an answer — a single truth that will burn and swallow you whole. Your body vibrates as a thousand images pass behind your eyes — grass, wind, open water, open space. The open space shines more brightly than the others, with color, sound, sensation. You think it’s because you’ve never been able to run and you want to, badly, until it takes over and you are robbed of breath and of reason.
You open your eyes. The darkness is somehow brilliant, and then you hear it.
The house is whispering and the house is telling you, “The matches are in the kitchen drawer, second from the right.” You reach over with hands that have never been so still, so calm, and rummage through pens, old labels, bag clips, until the matchbox’s dappled texture grazes your fingertips and a chill rushes through you.
At first, you are afraid. Then, without knowing why or how, you are brave.
It catches fire easily, as if it’s been waiting for a very long time to go up in flames.
You watch from afar in the blistering cold, watching and staring as the house is eaten up by the fire, the floorboards licked at, every last scrap of plaster savored until the very end.