The Cleaner

A frown creased her forehead, drawing lines up and over her eyes and down towards her nose. Her lips thinned into a line as her disapproving gaze swept around the space. Clutter stacked up everywhere, gathering dust and stagnancy. 

Nothing moved except for the dust motes in the air. Nothing, not even time, not even breath. The detritus of chaos laid scattered about as if flung by a petulant child, now each piece a node which held taut energy between them, thin lines like prison bars. 

It was stifling but she reached her hand out for her broom and got to work. This broom was a friend to her, ancient and hardworking as she was. Over the years they had worked together to clean many houses, many minds, many bodies. Some had been harder work than others. This one, this one wasn’t the worst, but it was quite bad. Corners filled with cobwebs, graveyards of curled up spider bodies and thick dust and shadows. A grime coated the walls like greasy coal dust, so she rolled up her sleeves to prevent them being covered in muck. 

Together, she and the broom cleared a circle around themselves first, and then worked spiralling outwards. They started to clear the objects that had gathered so much dust, and as they did, bright flashes of memory appeared, shaking off the weight of accumulated years. A teddy bear resolved into an image of holding on tightly for comfort, an anchor in a world too big and too disorienting to endure. A dress with stains unloosed a ravening shadow memory of a dark night and terror, a pulse of adrenaline leading to a fight to escape. A record led to a churning memory of hatred, seething beneath a surface beaten to submission. 

Each time a memory was set free, she stood and watched the broom stilling, with a hardened look in her eye, a look that over the years had been schooled to stillness, yet floated over the top of a rage so wide and so deep that it could have swallowed the world. 

But that wasn’t why she was here, not any more. In her youth her rage had crashed like a torrent, a foaming, frothing tidal wave that swept away all before it. She had exacted revenge, terrible and terrifying revenge, but she had seen in time that destruction cannot heal, only break. And so, she had turned instead to this. A gentle but firm cleaning, a cleaning out of old things, a banishment of dust and shadows. Though some of the memories from her youth she kept, to keep her blood hot on cold, hard, dirty jobs like this. 

And so she and the broom continued. A sparkling ring gave up many tears and a broken heart. A giant jumper released bittersweet memories of a dear friend, long gone. The dust thickened in the air as they worked, the light dimming. The corners were always the worst, the dank crannies where the sharpest things became wedged, to be surrounded and softened by the other clutter that built up around them. 

The thick greasy grime on the walls coated hands and bristles. Carefully hands and bristles removed scissors, pills, a school bag and a bed. This time the stony face drew inwards as a silent tear rolled down her wrinkled cheek. She scrubbed the walls and opened the window, letting in light and air for the first time in years. 

The room looked bare and raw, empty and waiting for new and brighter things to arrive. With a nod of grim satisfaction, the woman clutched her broom to her, and walked off into the midday sun.