A Familiar Voice

Sober for the first time in days, Dan looked around the farmhouse searching for a more productive way to spend his day. He had been drinking heavily ever since his mom died last Tuesday and as he looked around the house, he saw many things she would have taken care of if she were still here.

One look at the bathroom and he knew she would never let it get this bad. There was mildew on the shower walls, old and dried toothpaste in the sink, and fresh spider webs collecting dust in the corners. Towels were crumpled on the floor and the toilet needed scrubbing. One glance at the mirror and he saw his scruffy face, disheveled hair and swollen red eyes staring back at him. Seeing his reflection that way, Dan was disgusted and wandered back toward the kitchen.

His inventory of the kitchen wasn't any better. He saw dirty dishes on the counter. They had not even made it to the sink; and he tripped over the kitchen rug as he began to do so. The coffee mill was filled with excess coffee grounds, which had clumped into an odd formation of coffee rocks and black moldy coffee sand.

The rooster and chicken salt and pepper shakers, which he had given to his mother years ago for Mother’s Day, were lying on their sides with salt and pepper spilled over the sticky counter.

Dan stopped by the kitchen sink and put the plug in the drain. Squirting a generous stream of dish soap in to the sink, Dan ran the water and filled the sink with the dirty dishes. His gaze wandered around the room. The kitchen was a mess. It would take hours to get it clean and he could not believe how lazy he had been.

For three hours he worked on the kitchen. He washed all the dishes, emptied the coffee mill, wiped up the spilled coffee grounds, the salt and pepper and swept the kitchen floor. After a quick mop across the stickiest areas, he straightened the woven rug and wiped down the cabinet doors. Once the kitchen was back in order, he took a deep breath and surveyed his handiwork.

Satisfied with the work he had done, Dan left the kitchen and headed to the living room. Stuffed in the disheveled couch cushions, he found the feather duster; one made from genuine ostrich feathers. He began dusting the end tables and the bookshelves. As he dusted the top of the book shelf the feather duster snagged on something. Reaching up over the ornate ledge, he discovered the feather duster was snagged on the string to his father’s old crossbow. Taken by surprise, Dan began to weep.

He remembered the day his mom had hidden it from him. He had been playing with the crossbow and snapped the string, almost breaking it. Mom took it away from him and said he could not play with it as it was not a toy. He had looked for it several times as a teenager but he never thought to look on top of the bookcase.

Finding the old crossbow fought back memories of his dad who had died when Dan was ten years old. Never really dealing with the loss of his father and now his mother was also gone; Dan was filled with an overwhelming sense of loss and grief. He knew his recent binge drinking had been because he wasn’t dealing with his mother’s death and now to have all the old feeling from his father’s death come back to the surface, Dan collapsed into the couch cushions. He could almost feel the gloom filling the room.

He felt so lost and alone. He felt like an orphan. He felt like drinking. He wanted the hurt to stop hurting – he did not know what to do next. If only his mother was still here. “Perhaps you could continue cleaning“; he heard a familiar female voice softly say in his head. “Dan, the bathroom is still a mess. “

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