One Weird Day

The Sweeper

The color of the sky is strange today, with giant waves of green and purple coiling on the horizon. The yard is covered with that annoying dust again, and I have only cleaned it yesterday. Sometimes I feel like giving up. But someone needs to clean the mess, right? So I take the broom, and start all over again.

It hasn't always been like this. As a child, I don't think I ever had to use a broom. My dad made a fortune on Wall Street and there were nannies, cleaning ladies, cooks in our house, so I never had much to do.

Daddy was always working, Mommy was always busy with herself. They were such a cliché rich couple, and I was an equally cliché spoiled brat, or at least that's what kids at my school said. They didn't like me, which was kinda mutual, so Daddy eventually got me into that home schooling thing, with all those private teachers coming and going and telling me how gifted and nice and clean I was.

I finish with the yard and take a peak outside. Sweeping the street seems like a waste of time in such wind, so I go to check on the backyard. The fence protects it from the dust, but there's still some rubbish and broken bricks I haven't gathered yet. I begin to collect them into the garbage bag. It's not easy to do with the gloves and the costume I'm wearing, but I can't just leave them here with who knows what germs and worms lurking underneath.

As a kid, I spent a lot of time reading about all sorts of things, but the stuff about dirt really got to me. I mean, it turns out that most of the dust in the house is made of dead skin—gross, right? And people just walk by, and they can touch you, and who knows what microbes they're carrying. And their dogs poop on the streets. And they step in it and bring it home and it gets into the air with all the dead skin and hair and who knows what else—just thinking of that made me nauseous.

Cleaning ladies were no good, so I started cleaning by myself. I dusted, scrubbed, and swabbed, and our house was shining at all times.

After a few years, my parents began to notice the problem. By that time I was unwilling to go out of the house at all because of all the dirt outside. So they started buying books about obsessions, compulsions, and good parenting. Which was kind of funny—I mean, aren't you supposed to notice that you have a child before she makes it into high school and develops a cleaning obsession? All of a sudden, they spent evenings at home and were willing to talk to me, but it wasn't too welcomed because they were so full of germs by my standards.

Eventually, they gave up. I guess they had some kind of a guilty feeling about my cleaning issues, so they tried to make up for it the only way they could—with money. We had a big basement in our house, and Daddy had it rebuilt and turned it into a kind of a germ-free fortress, where I could lock myself up and feel safe. It had thick walls, no windows, a system of water and ventilation, and I had a stack of food, so that I wouldn't have to go out unless I wanted to.

But why would I want to?

One day, they started to knock on the door real hard, but I had it locked from the inside. The door was thick so I couldn't hear them, but they were pushing big time. Then they texted me: "Open now! Nuclear attack!" That one really made me giggle. I mean, they are supposed to be, like, adults and reasonable and stuff, and then they go "we are under a nuclear attack" and then they say I should open the door. Where's the logic? Who would open a door in such circumstances?

So I typed a very neat sarcastic answer and sent it back to them, but they never answered. And then the lights went out, which wasn't very nice, but then the first of our emergency generators kicked in, and the lights were back on so that I could resume my reading.

The electricity lasted a few weeks, but then I was out of water, so I had to go out. I put my sterile costume on and the gloves and the mask, and then I tried to open the door, but it was blocked with all kind of debris from the outside, so it took me quite some time to break free.

The house was pretty much destroyed, as well as the rest of the neighborhood. Everything around was such a mess, with burned cars and corpses on the streets. I could barely find a clean spot to take a step. Eventually, I made it to whatever was left of the supermarket, and found some food in its basement. I took it back home, and I wanted to lock myself up again, but all the mess around just got on my nerves, you know what I mean? I couldn't help it.

I began to clean.

Now that the backyard looks reasonably good and the wind calmed down, I decide to go and sweep the street a little. I've moved most of the bodies into the gutter already, so now I can just sweep the road easily.

I'm not sure for how long I've been doing this. I think it's been weeks. I sleep and eat in the basement and then I go outside to clean. I meet no people and almost no animals, except for a pack of dogs, looking more like wolves, that rummage in the neighborhood. Sometimes when I sweep, they approach and growl at me, but I growl back, and they leave.

Nobody's allowed to poop on my street.

I'm going to clean it big time.

Seriously, at last I can turn our neighborhood into a nice place, without anyone rolling their eyes at my efforts. If I manage to find some paint, I could even color the remaining gates and walls. Now they are covered with ash, and some of them carry bright imprints that remind human silhouettes. Looks like a war zone, but some nice color could really change the look.

Maybe pink.

Pink is neat.