The Citrus Syndrome

25 ; dirt

Dirt

Ghania

Cleaning is useless.

I mop up vomit, scrub away stains from feces, clean up blood from the floor, but the moment I step away, it is replaced by more filth. Someone is always throwing up or defecating or bleeding, spilling food or ripping their hair out or pissing on themselves. I feel like I am working at an understaffed nursery.

Taya has taken to a different job, one that I couldn't stand to do. She steps around pools of body fluids without cleaning them, and instead sits down beside the sick, setting a pill bottle and a cup of water down beside them. She takes their hands, whispering to them and stroking their hair until they trust her. Then she coaxes their mouths open and drops a pill or two in.

I cannot tell what the pills are. She has different bottles. One bottle is Advil, I can tell that much. Another seems to be some kind of antibiotic. The other, however, is unmarked. It produces large, pale green pills that I notice she only administers to the adults, usually the men. She has given it to one child and three women as well.

Pushing my mop over another puddle of vomit, I wonder if my hunch about the green pills is correct.

It seems to me that the pills from the unmarked bottle must be the riskiest, as Taya only dares to give them to the men and a select few mortally ill women and children. Could it possibly be an experimental antidote?

I keep my eyes down. I do not want Taya to see me watching her.

From afar, I admire her skills. The ease with which she asserts herself into each person's life, the softness of her voice as she tells them it will be okay, the gentle fingers she uses to extract pills from the throats of those who cannot swallow them. Working with the sick people seems to come naturally to her.

I still find it hard to believe that she and Dr. Catherine were ever together. They are on opposite ends of every spectrum: Taya has a soft face, flat cheeks and warm eyes; Catherine has sharp, severe features, high cheekbones and suspicious blue eyes that pierce you like icicles; Taya will strike up a conversation with anyone who walks by her; Catherine will shut down her system, making it clear that she does not want to talk to you; Taya has a calming, motherly aura; Catherine can make you seize up with fear simply by entering a room.

Perhaps they balanced each other out. Perhaps Taya's kindness was just what Catherine needed in her times of stress and anxiety.

I allow myself to entertain the notion that Dr. Catherine at work is just an act. That she goes home to Taya at the end of the day and drops the facade, hanging up her coat with a smile and asking, "How was your day, Love?"

Then I remember what occurred just minutes ago in the library. Obviously, Catherine treated her lover no differently than the rest of us. Worse, Taya did not seem surprised by Catherine's defection.

"Ghania!" calls a voice. It is the one assistant down here who knows my name. I believe his name is Emerson. He is the one who alerts me when there is a new disgrace to clean up. "Will you help this woman, please? bring a rag and . . ." He trails off, already moving on to the next thing.

I nod, dragging my mop back to the corner where my cleaning supplies are. Surprisingly, I have found that there are things I enjoy about being the janitor. I like that this corner is mine, that no one will bother me while I am back here because they know I am doing important work and that their own would not be possible without me. I like all the cleaning supplies, queued up in orderly lines on the shelves, all displayed in case one needs to be deployed. I like the clean smell over here, the tiny break it provides from the constant stink of human waste and rotting bodies.

"Help this woman" usually means that someone has relieved themselves in bed, so I grab a fresh set of clothes from the shelf. We have a one size fits all outfit: a large t-shirt, a pair of drawstring canvas pants, a large pair of underwear that never fits anyone, and a wilted bra for the women. I take a bundle of clothes along with a bucket of warm water and a rag.

I try to remember where Emerson was when he yelled for me. Then I see the woman he was talking about.

She reminds me of the models I have seen on billboards and in magazines: long, sculpted legs, blonde hair, pale eyes, striking features with a bold nose that makes her more beautiful than pretty. She has a strange face like many of those models do, cheekbones so prominent that they make you uncomfortable and plump, quiet lips that can't seem to reconcile themselves with the rest of her sharp, challenging face.

It is a strange thing. I do not usually find myself studying the beauty in people from whom I will soon be cleaning waste. However, there is no denying that she is beautiful, and now, with her expression of hopeless sorrow, tragically so.

She is beside someone I recognize. It is Bo's girlfriend, the one with the baby. The baby is gone now. I assume it passed away recently. I wonder if Bo was there to see it happen or if he still does not know the fate of his child.

I move toward them, keeping my eyes down. Violet lets out a sob when she catches sight of me, fastening her arm around her friend's waist. I suppose she is afraid I will take her away like I took Bo.

Setting down the bucket and the clothes on the floor next to their bed, I look the blonde woman over. She does not smell of piss or waste. I then realize that she isn't in this world right now. She is hallucinating. And something extraordinary is happening.

She is bleeding dirt.

It comes from her palms, her cheeks, her ears, her shoulders. I hurry to peel off her shirt, revealing more earth seeping out of her stomach, piling out of her bra. It sneaks up from beyond the waistband of her pants, burying her.

Violet is sobbing deliriously. She retracts her arms from around the girl's waist, her face contorting in horror. "Natalie!" she cries. "Nattie, wake up!"

Natalie. Is that her name? It suits her.

Violet's eyes meet mine. "Help her!" she sobs.

I nod. I do not know this woman, but I feel a strong conviction that she will not die on my watch.