Cleaning Days

The last one to make it in is usually a kid. Bright eyes surrounded by dirt. I close the door after him. Sometimes right after switching off the lights, before I open the valves, I think about them. They do not know. I do. Am I a monster? Somebody else would close the door. Somebody else would switch off the lights. Somebody else would open the valves. I have a wife. I have a son and a daughter. They tease each other all the time. I miss them. First the silence. Have you ever listen to it? Whenever this ends I will be back home. As it is for now, I better be on this side of the door. I hate myself. This is my job. One day my son is going to ask. One day I am going to lie. Am I the only one? She likes to dance. She is dancing around the house all the time.

- Yo!

- What?

- What's wrong with you? You're like gone. Open the valves and let's go have some dinner before the cleaning.

Chamomile

It started as a tiny lie. Not even that. It was not even a lie. It was a hidden truth. But that was a while ago. Little by little the tiny lie became more and more. Snowball effect they call it. It was too late now to undo what he had done. That is what he thought. Too late to tell her. He was not ready to take her reaction. He did not want that responsibility. The feeling would kill him. He could have thought about that before, couldn't he? Only then he understood how thin the border between sanity and insanity is. Thin and red. He saw himself killing her. Problems can be faced, ignored, or deleted. Deletion did not look impossible anymore. He could poison her. She loved chamomile tea. He could get rid of the body overnight, cut it into pieces and let alligators finish the job in the everglades. Black waste plastic bags. The worst part would come later. And the Oscar goes to. Was he crazy? As crazy as all those people in the accident and crime reports. What is the difference between thinking about it and not? A red thin line, maybe? Was he already insane? It started as a tiny lie. It just started as a tiny lie. He stopped pedaling.

"Hello," she was waiting at the door.

"Hello! I went for a ride," walking his bike towards her.

"I bought ice cream."

"Ice cream sound delicious. How was your day, darling?"

"Nothing new. I brought also chamomile. Last time I finished it," he kissed her briefly in the cheek.

"It's curious how I was just thinking about chamomile..."