Last night, after I brushed my teeth, I put the little white rubber plug into the black gaping hole that is the drain. I had never done that before, but I've thought about the protection it might give, the slight comfort.
Something lives down there. It has ugly black and pink tentacles that I sometimes break off when I scrub the drain with that heavy-duty pipe cleaner Mike bought me. When I use my heavy-duty pipe cleaner in that drain, I sometimes feel like a minor super hero at battle with an alien.
When I put toothpaste and spit and kitchen sludge down the drain, I imagine I am involuntarily feeding him. Now and then, when he clogs the drain or makes it slow, I put vinegar and boiling water on his head and I imagine the screaming as the heat and vinegar loosens his grip and he slides away toward the septic tank. He's afraid of the creatures that live in the septic tank. They would devour him, so he grips the end of the pipe and slowly crawls back up into my drain to safety. He's thinner now and missing many pink and black tentacles which the septic monsters ate greedily.
I imagine him whispering up through the pipes that he will not get fat and slow the drain, that he will not reach his ugly fingers up over the edge of the sink and show me his pockmarked and gelatinous face, but when I am brushing my teeth and look down into that black hole of his, I fear that he will leap out of the drain, attach his tentacles to my foamy lips, and kiss my ugly pink tongue. I'm afraid he might find my dark throat a more cozy place to live and that I would be stuck, living a long and agonizing life, with him there.
Thank you for listening, jb
Something lives down there. It has ugly black and pink tentacles that I sometimes break off when I scrub the drain with that heavy-duty pipe cleaner Mike bought me. When I use my heavy-duty pipe cleaner in that drain, I sometimes feel like a minor super hero at battle with an alien.
When I put toothpaste and spit and kitchen sludge down the drain, I imagine I am involuntarily feeding him. Now and then, when he clogs the drain or makes it slow, I put vinegar and boiling water on his head and I imagine the screaming as the heat and vinegar loosens his grip and he slides away toward the septic tank. He's afraid of the creatures that live in the septic tank. They would devour him, so he grips the end of the pipe and slowly crawls back up into my drain to safety. He's thinner now and missing many pink and black tentacles which the septic monsters ate greedily.
I imagine him whispering up through the pipes that he will not get fat and slow the drain, that he will not reach his ugly fingers up over the edge of the sink and show me his pockmarked and gelatinous face, but when I am brushing my teeth and look down into that black hole of his, I fear that he will leap out of the drain, attach his tentacles to my foamy lips, and kiss my ugly pink tongue. I'm afraid he might find my dark throat a more cozy place to live and that I would be stuck, living a long and agonizing life, with him there.
Thank you for listening, jb
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