le poisson

Kitchens are almost always dirty.  One expects a bathroom to be dirty, or a garage, but upon thinking about it, one realizes that kitchens are downright nasty.  

That orange slice fell behind the fridge weeks ago, I thought.  Now it's probably nothing more than a couple of seeds.  But what am I supposed to do about that?  Move the fridge to retrieve an orange slice?  Negative.  

I happened upon this train of thought for a number of reasons, the main two being that a) I work at a restaurant, and b) I am stuck in a cleaning frenzy that has lasted about three days now and is showing no signs of easing.  (And people prepare food in kitchens! I thought).  I threw down the 409 and a dingy old rag.  Time to get out of the house: commence with personal intervention.

I am a walking stream of consciousness, I thought.  

Isn't everybody?  

Well, yes, I suppose so.  But some people are less ... conscious? ... than others.

You mean like brain dead?  Or ignorant?

Probably both.  

I could go on, but the inner dialogue got confusing and technical and, to be honest, boring.  This is why our thoughts wonder.  

There are rats in kitchens.  I'm quitting my job, I thought.  I don't want to support rats.  Nor do I want to work for them.  That's what I'm doing, isn't it?  Cleaning up after them?  And flies.  Damn the flies.

I walked to the coffee shop on the corner of the next block.  Several types of people littered inside were on computers, probably wasting time.  Some of them were entranced in books and various notebooks - telltale signs of studying.  I thought about the time of year: December.  Finals.  Ah, I see.  

The skinny kid behind the counter did not care about me.  I'm getting old, I realized.  To him I look like 24-year-old boys looked when I was 16.  Only, I was in awe of 24-year-old boys when I was 16, and this kid was clearly disillusioned with me.  Try smiling, I thought.

I smiled.

"Can I have a soy latte?"

"Mmhmm."  He set to it.

Coffee in hand, I strolled back to my house.  The 409 and the rag are waiting for me anxiously.  Or perhaps not so anxiously - they must be tired.  I'm tired.  I'm a kind of tired in which you feel pleasant, calm.  You stroll down the street and wouldn't be surprised if you fell in love right then, or died.  

I supposed then that, with my coffee in hand, neither of those things would be altogether bad.  After all, I felt as though we had forgotten how small we are, and the orange slices and rats and flies had forgotten, and suddenly we're breathing for the last time, or kissing someone we feel we've known all our lives, or watching a car come barreling unstoppably toward us, and suddenly we remember.