Sewage

As I walk down the corridor, I think about the messy, filth-coated kitchen waiting for me. I have spent the last three days reaching for the spray bottle to kill fruit flies. A mixture of cleaning spray, dish soap, and hot water. There doesn't seem to be an end to the infestation.

I keep getting lost in my thoughts these days. I keep being present, forgetting it's Monday when it's really Thursday.

The corridor seems to stretch. The walls get grimier, the floor stickier, and the musty smell is seeping into my clothes.

I'm drowning and I am going to die here. My life doesn't flash through my eyes. Instead a feeling of dread becomes ingrained in my being. However, I am not dreading anything, but have become the feeling itself.

I have blended with the corridor. I have become dread. I have informed myself and those listening of my worthlessness. By doing all this, I have been granted passage to the kitchen. A man is waiting for me. He guides me to the boat and we begin our travels to the stove. He uses a paddle, his hands protected from the filth by his thin gloves, to guide us through the swarms of dirt, sewage, and fruit flies. My stomach rumbles and I can feel that my journey, the most essential part of it, has begun.

The rower stops the boat, extends his protected hands and helps me dive in the sewage. I look up, now deep in filth, and see the man smiling.

I keep going.

There is something familiar about this place. It feels as if it has always been home, my womb, my bed, my coffin. Perhaps a spec among the sewage is all I will ever amount to.

I keep going.

I reach the stove and my journey comes close to an end. I decide that whatever I came here to do is not worth the effort. I turn the temperature knob to the max. I climb into the oven. My womb and coffin are one. I feel the temperature steadily rising. My skin beginning to boil.

In fetal position I smile as I remember that bacteria cannot survive very hot temperatures.

This spec of dirt is gone.