Motes of Madness

When does dislike become a phobia, and how drastically can a phobia change you?

Motes Of Madness

             Andrea arrived at the family home a day before the rest of her siblings. Abandoned six years ago and neglected due to lack of physical resources for at least five years before that, she wanted to fully appraise it before any sibling power plays took place. She wanted facts. As a prosecutor, facts were what she lived on.

         She walked around whisking dust covers off furniture, tossing armloads of them out the back door to be dealt with later. She kept her lips compressed and her eyes slitted against the scattering showers of dust. Andrea walked over or shoved aside the dust bunnies that popped out from under each piece of furniture. She tested that the electricity and water had been turned on for the weekend as requested. Checking the bedrooms and baths upstairs, she was disappointed to see no water stains on the ceiling. The roof was still holding. Needing a new roof would have devalued the property a good deal. She was hoping for a low-ball appraisal. Her plan was to make her siblings feel like she was performing a service by taking the property off their hands.

         The siblings were gathering to determine the fate of the old place, built over one hundred years earlier by a great-grandfather who hit it big by buying up adjacent land, tripling his crop of corn, and tendering a partnership with Clarence Birdseye.

         Andrea didn’t care about the history or the lore. She wanted to sell the place, or better yet, tear it down and sell the land to the commercial farms now surrounding it. Raw land would bring in a better price than the house. If she was going to mount a viable run for District Attorney, she needed money.

         She pulled the store-bought salad, a baguette, and a bottle of wine out of the bags. Jasper and his wife, Shane, had promised to arrive early in the morning with coffee and Danish. Wendy and the third sibling, Margot, were bringing the rest of the groceries for the weekend.

         While finishing off the bread and wine in the soft darkness on the front porch, Andrea set out a list of arguments in her head: it was too big to be heated efficiently; wiring and piping were out of code; it was probably full of lead-based paint, maybe even asbestos; the fields were ruined from neglect.

           When the breeze quickened and the night chill worked its way through her light sweater, Andrea went upstairs to bed. She avoided touching either the fading paint or the banister. Motes of dust swung in the weak glare of the stairwell fixture and she ducked her head. She stepped over one of the hideous dust bunnies as she went into the bedroom she had claimed. A quarter-sized mote skittered to the side. She laughed at it.

“With luck, you’ll soon join the dirt under this place.”

She tugged and pulled her own sheets onto the bed, the best she could do.

         When she left the bedroom to cross the hall with her toothbrush, toothpaste, and assorted youth-restoring creams, the gray fleck skittered between her bare feet and joined a smaller fleck on the other side of the doorway. A shiver ran across Andrea’s shoulders. She really disliked dust. She went through three cleaning services for her house getting that across.

         The swish of her feet sent a line of dusty egg-like balls across the doorway to her room on her return. She angrily kicked at them and marched to the bed, flinging herself under the covers. She skittered her feet back and forth under the sheet to remove any dust from her skin.  

         Her sleep was tortured. She dreamt of dust covering her hands and kept wiping them on the covers, fighting to stay asleep and yet wake up. When disjointed sounds of shuffling and muted laughter mingled with the sensation of dust on her skin, Andrea fought to bring herself back to reality..

         She gasped, pulling her head off the pillow. She watched throbbing linty puffs somersault on the covers over her legs.

         “Get off! Go away!” she barked and kicked her legs wildly. She sat up, pulling her legs close to her body. She rubbed her arms roughly, trying to cure the chill that overtook her and to ground herself as her therapist called it.

         Andrea evaluated the intruders, bobbing in clusters at the foot of the bed. She calculated the time it would take to flip the covers over them and get out of the room. A tickle running up the back of her neck sent the covers and Andrea flying. She buffeted her neck with slaps as she ran for the stairs, her own screams chasing her.

         A small army of baseball-sized, grimy balls of pulsing fluff lined the top step. Andrea used the banister to catapult herself over them. She ricocheted off the wall and tried to take the remaining stairs two at a time but tripped and tumbled the last third of the staircase.

         Andrea managed to battle her way to her knees, one shoulder screaming and with double vision. She shrieked when her vision cleared enough to see a horde of dust bunnies, giggling madly and jumping over each other, advancing on her.

         Andrea sensed that the front door was blocked. A mix of chortles and growls lanced at her from that direction. She grabbed the banister and hoisted herself to her feet. She focused on the doorknob on the back door. She could see it glinting in the moonlight and stumbled toward it.

         She collapsed against the door and gripped the doorknob.  She looked out the door’s window and moaned. The dust covers tossed outside earlier now backed a wall of thread-filled balls of batting. They vibrated and projected pure fury. 

         She jumped back, abandoning the door, and charged at a furry, snarling formation between her and the front door. It was too high to hurtle so Andrea charged, arms flailing and her voice emitting a protracted shrill, piercing howl.

         “You’re dust! Just dust! Squishy dust! Go away! Not real! Not real!”

         Jasper and Shane arrived about an hour after sunrise. They were surprised to see Andrea sitting on the top porch step, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth. As they got closer, her condition became clearer and they stopped walking toward her.. Her hair was knotted and haloed around her head, threaded with lint and dust. Her face was scratched and striped with grime. There was grit scattered on her clothes and clumped between her fingers. A low hum of whispered words, like a chant, pulsed from her.  This was not the upwardly mobile sister Jasper knew.

         Five years later, Jasper and Shane hosted the family Fourth of July barbecue at the old house. It sported new paint and a cheery garden across the front and down one side. The plaque designating the house as a National Historical site hung next to the front door. A field of sweet corn was visible through the opening between a large shed and the house. 

         Margot and Wendy arrived last, a sad smile part of their greeting.

         “Sorry we’re late. We stopped to bring flowers to Andrea. They say she’s had a good week, but her only words are still just ‘dust monsters’. She spits a lot,” Margot added. “I don’t think she even knew we were there.”

            

Reviews

[Hunter Lewis]

Clever fellow. A brilliant premise and told well. You obviously know what you're doing.