Excerpt: "On The Cleaning Of Toilets For A Living" (Modus Monologukunk)

After being fired from his job, Ron Lark gets a job at a local public school as a custodian. He muses on what he sees.

Paint-dripped tiles, white blotches on square textiles, arranged by fours, in groups of grays and lime greens. That’s the floor. Staring at it, I hope for it to change before me, to open like a door to Tartarus. Not that it opens to Hell and demonic fiends. Just that it opens to something. Something different than the world of my habitation.

The bugs seem to enjoy the ground. Their appendages clasp tight, even the dead ones, husks of small lives that died walking to who knows where. Do they even know?

Public follicles litter the tiles. Like bits of grass scattered on the floor. And it almost seems as if these strands of mather -- once living and attached to genitalia and other fertile sections, as though seed sewn amongst the paint-dripped tile -- have taken root in the grime and built deep into the tiles to form a small garden of filth. A shadow ode to the possibilities of fertility. A symbol of the potential for fertility -- taken, squabbled and used for self pleasure.

The grime on the toilet seat -- more than dribbles of urine, more than splattered defecations -- was thicker than grease.

And I took up the brush.

And I took up the cleaner.

And I fought the grime.