,The light streaming in the windows glittered with thousands and thousands of teeny-tiny motes of dust. Drifting slowly, dancing downward, they settled on the spotless glass windowpanes and slowly coated the surfaces of the highly waxed furniture. Soon the longer-lived particles would spiral all the way down, down into the lush, potpourri-scented, Oriental throw carpet and the polished and buffed parquet hardwood floors.
Prissilla screamed.
Swiping madly at the dust flying wildly about her head, Prissilla started crying.
“I’ll never win,” she sobbed. “I’ll never get rid of the dust and she’ll never let me be free.” She stood amid the wildly swirling particles, blind to them as the tears fell from her face to make tiny dust-mud puddles on the floor.
The dust slowly settled back onto the coffee table, but the majority found their way to the shiny floor. She knew that soon they would unite to form larger units, globs of dust that would skitter under the furniture with the slightest breeze.
“Well, I quit. Yeah, I give up. I can’t control them anymore; the dust bunnies can have their way,” Prissilla mumbled, feeling defeated by the overwhelming task that always lay before her. No wonder Howard couldn’t take anymore.
Shoulders rounded by the weight of failure, Prissilla left the room. Her back was turned from the bunnies that shivered in her wake.
Three hours later, Prissilla struggled to relax and read a book on the spotless, freshly vacuumed sofa. She listened to whispers from under the couch, whispers of hunger, need and growing strength.
“Stay there and leave me alone,” she whimpered. “Leave me alone.”
But the inaudible voices continued to hum in her head, “Prissssillla… let us love you… Sssillla… we only want to make you happy… let us help.”
Prissilla clamped stereo headphones on, turned up the volume and tried to drown out the words with music.
A frail woman with pink-tinged white hair hobbled into the living room.
Prissilla sat silently and watched.
Watched as, leaning heavily on her gleaming, cold steel walker, the old crone inched over to the bookcase.
“Tsk, tsk,” the woman muttered as she struggled to pull a white cotton glove over her gnarled arthritic hand. Then she slowly ran her fingers over the rim of the shelf and smiled.
“Just as I thought,” she said smugly. “Prissy! Prissy, get up off your lazy behind and clean this room. The dust is so thick a soul could choke to death!”
So die, Prissilla thought. Choke, die and leave me alone, but she jumped off the sofa anyway and immediately starting dusting the furniture with the cloth taken from her jeans pocket.
“The glass, the glass,” the old woman croaked as she lit a cigarette. “The windows are dirty, too.”
Prissilla ground her teeth together until they hurt. She watched the smoke curl upward and could almost see it covering the freshly washed windows with a new coating of tars and resins.
“Yes, Mother,” she finally said.
The old woman hobbled over to the overstuffed chair and fell like a graceless skeleton onto the seat. “While you are at it Prissy, there are dust bunnies under the sofa you were loafing on. I swear you are the laziest woman alive. No wonder Howard left you.”
Prissilla stiffened at the mention of Howard. “Ignore her,” a voice whispered so softly she wasn’t sure if she heard it, or it was inside her head. “No, better yet, kill her.”
Prissilla shook her head, opted to ignore the old woman, and sat back down to read.
“Prissy, if you don’t do something about those dust bunnies, I will, even if it kills me.”
Prissilla looked up for a moment, then back down. She listened to her mother struggle with the walker, trying to pull herself up out of the big, deep chair. She looked up again momentarily when she heard the walker slip from the older woman’s grip on the slick, slippery floor.
She watched her mother fall forward and lay prone on the hardwood.
“Prissy…help me,” the elderly woman called in a pitiful voice. “Prissy I’ve fallen… fallen and I can’t get up”
Prissilla sat like a statue, fighting her emotions. Just as she was about to give in, her mother barked, “Prissy, stop this foolishness right now. Do something before the dust down here drowns me!”
“All right, Mother, I’ll do something… I’ll do something right away.” She got up, went to the phone, and called Howard. “Honey, you can come home now. I’ve decided to take care of the problem.”
Then Prisilla bent down and called. “I hear you. I accept you and you can stay.”
The old woman looked fearful and desperately grasped the fallen walker as she tried to pull herself up.
From under the chairs and sofas dozens of little fuzzy dust bunnies crept out, whispering to each other.
Prissilla smiled at the pests that had somehow become pets and pointed. “Okay guys. Dinnertime!”
A few nights later, Howard sat and read the newspaper as Prissilla dusted the spotless coffee table. She hummed along to the whispered song of contentment that only she could hear as she moved about the room, swiping the cloth across everything.
Everything that is, except the gray, fluffy sculpture of an old, bent woman with a shiny, shiny walker.
