Wednesday 10 June 2009

At home

The cleaner got diagnosed with terminal cancer a year ago but is still alive. She carried on paying her her hourly wage bi-monthly, "What else can you do?"


But time hasn't expanded and she hasn't found time nor a new cleaner and consequently the place gradually became miserably dirty.


She said I'd been in Japan too long, but there was dust like settled snow and black cat hairs in balls. I started hoovering but, like two shampoos at the hairdresser, I needed to cover the area twice- giving time for the carpet to breathe once again and exhale another clingfilm of deeply ingrained dust.


The place is quiet and once again I am here in the country I remember where the rain tap is almost always left on. Not too much adjusting for me apart from for the sensors in my bum. 'Recoil' as they hit the cold porcelain, after months of warmed plastic, beeping plastic, plastic which creates a flushing sound when appraoched so that the pooper can poop in peace even if there are other listeners in the vicinity. But here it is just that temperature and there are no gadgets to play with to wash the bum, spray your bits or...


I begin reading the Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid. 52 pages in; it is brilliant...

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