SoHumBorn Sunday: Tidy Bowl

The house was clean.  That was a pleasant surprise.  her brother was not known for his housekeeping skills, or any skills for that matter.

He was in fact a loser.  When her husband gave him this job she knew she’d be the middle of a bad situation, but he’s family.  What are you gong to do?

They had made every thing as idiot proof as possible.  All he had to do was water, feed and make sure the place didn’t burn down. He didn’t even have to change the oil or pump fuel anymore.  After the last fiasco he’d been banned from the generator shed and another man had been hired to handle those chores.

The house had once been home to a family.  Little remnants of it’s past life linger.  A little piece of crayon art in one of the upstairs windows.  A child’s plastic bike in the front yard.  Magnetic alphabet letters left on the front of the refrigerator.

Those days are over.

The upstairs has been gutted and is now brightly lit.  Wooden beds filled with soil cover nearly every part of the floor the slim walkways are lined with hoses and fans are mounted along the walls it bears no resemblance to it’s past life.

Downstairs her brother’s bed is on one side of the old living room. The other side has been converted to a drying area, and it’s packed full of drying plants.  The kitchen and bathroom are the only part of the house untouched by the “remodel.”

She’s here now to prepare for the crew that will show up to trim tomorrow.

Her brother is upstairs replanting with the clones she had brought up, while she unloads the groceries and supplies for the crew.

She heads out for another load of bags.  Crossing the deck, the warm afternoon sun seduces her into taking a short break in one of the deck chairs.

As she eases her less than graceful bulk into the chair, the little guy begins his crazed dance routine.  She lays back and slides her shirt up to watch her distended abdomen bulge and stretch s the baby rolls and kicks. Every time she tries to relax or sleep he does this.  It’s like he can’t stand a lack of motion, so every time she stops moving he starts.

A little heel pushes up forming a peak and she laughs. Reaching down she gently pushes back, marveling at the life inside her. It still seems slightly unreal.

The sun filled valley is peaceful. She can hear cattle lowing in the distance as she watches a group of shiny black birds circling ever higher on some unseen updraft.  Her mind drifts along and she halfheartedly wonders if they are crows or ravens, or are those the same thing?

The little guy’s antics have predictably given her the urge to pee. She doesn’t want to get up, but she knows she has to, or face the possibility of an embarrassing accident.

Getting out of the chair is a process. What was once a simple act done without thought has become a geometry problem, where she must consider leverage points, center of balance and the laws of physics.

She makes her way to the bathroom, hoping that by some miracle it’s clean.

Damp towels and dirty laundry make pushing the bathroom door open a struggle, but when she opens the toilet lid, the water in the bowl is Tidy Bowl blue. Maybe he won’t be a pig his whole life.

Stepping to the sink to wash her hands, she turns on the water.  To her surprise, the water comes out a bright Tidy Bowl blue. She stands looking at the phenomenon.  She turns off the cold water and turns on the hot, it too is blue.  What the heck?

She goes to the bottom of the stairs “Jimmie!” she yells his name and hears a small crash and thump before he answers.  “What?” Jesus…like she’s going to yell her conversation with him up and down the stairs!  “Come down here!”  A few more thumps and a door opens, bathing the stairway in bright golden light.

“What?” She bites back the insult that comes to mind and once more asks him to come down.

He comes down grudgingly, bitching the entire time about how he has things to get done, and she is interrupting him.  When he reaches the bottom he frowns at her “What?”

She takes his hand and leads him to the kitchen sink.  Turning on the water, she stares at her brother as it pours out blue.

He turns it off and turns to her, in his face she sees the eight year old who’d followed her around, bugging her and her friends all Summer.

“Mixing those barrels of tea shit all the time was a stupid pain in the ass.” He whines.  “So I got some boxes of Miracle Grow and put them in the water tank.  It’s way easier!”

“Oh my God!” is all she can manage as her mind reaches for some fast way to solve this before everyone arrives.

Then, unable to keep herself from asking, it pops out, “How do you shower?”

Defensive in the face of her obvious dislike of his brilliant plan, he blurts out, “It’s not bad for you!”

She turns and heads back outside. The giggling overtakes her as she reaches the deck chair.  She lowers herself into the chair and the sun filled valley rings with her laughter.

 

For the next in the series go here

 

Twelth:SoHumBornSunday: The Ride Part 4&5
Thirteenth:SoHumBorn Sunday:The Ride Part 6&7
Fourteenth:SoHumBornSunday:The Ride Part 8-13 conclusion

 

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Image borrowed from here

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Ben
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Ben
13 years ago

That’s great, Kym.. Probably actually happened somewhere around here. Good ‘ol 20-20-20.

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[…] the Storm Part 2 Nineth: SoHumBornSunday:Weathering the Storm Part 3 Conclusion Tenth: SoHumBornSunday:Tidy Bowl T  May 23, 2010  Kym Categories: Fiction, Humboldt, […]

Ben
Guest
Ben
13 years ago

That’s great, Kym.. Probably actually happened somewhere around here. Good ‘ol 20-20-20.

trackback

[…] the Storm Part 2 Nineth: SoHumBornSunday:Weathering the Storm Part 3 Conclusion Tenth: SoHumBornSunday:Tidy Bowl T  May 23, 2010  Kym Categories: Fiction, Humboldt, […]