A Cellarful of Nose - Future Shoes

terrified of this tiny representative of the afterlife to this quiet
comfort in its presence?
Did I abandon my tenacity to life, that made these little
creatures so horrifying to me? Was I so close to death now, that I
felt no fear?
Ah, who the hell knows. I just know that, when we
remodeled the house, we suddenly had two perfectly nice
bathrooms, and I stopped going down there. One day a pipe
cracked, and I winched off the water supply to the toilet. Glug,
glug, gluck!
Time passed, and the next time I looked in, the bowl was
black with caked pumice. And Buddy, the spider – I have started
calling him that now – was gone.
It's funny, the things that tie us to our lives. All the diapers
that you change, all the vomit you towel up after a child's birthday
party, the vernix you scrape like soft crayon from your nails
following a baby's birth, all the tick-heads you pull off your dog's
head with a pair of pliers, all the tiny dropped toothbrushes you
fetch from the uriny bowl.
It hardens you to nature, it does. It builds a shell around you,
like those tiny armed creatures you see when you tip over a rock.
For so long, life seems perfect in the darkness and cold,
predictable and nutritious. You think you could do this forever.
Then somebody turns on the lights.
(1994)
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