« jeudi | Main | The Office Romance »
Mon | March 20, 2006
In the Laundry Room
It's 5 am and the young girl goes down to the laundry room. She forgot her clothes down there last night in her hurry to get out on Saturday night. She hopes they're still there.
She gets to the basement and there's a woman there, dressed in rags.
"What's the matter?" the woman asks.
"I'm looking for my clothes... that I left here last night."
"Last night. That's a long time to leave your clothes."
She doesn't answer. She opens every dryer even though it's possible to tell from the outside that they're empty. One of them has a sweatshirt but it's not hers.
"What do they look like?"
"They're just... they're my clothes."
"What about that pile over there?" the woman says, gesturing at a table in the corner, next to the trash.
The girl doubts they would be all the way over there but she goes and soon recognizes her terry cloth sweatshirt.
"They are mine. This is so obnoxious," she says, as she looks in the trash and sees that some of the clothes have fallen, or been tossed, into the can. "Who would do this?"
The woman moves away, shifts, and straightens her hands, like she is soothing her fingers or putting on rings. She has no rings; she is dressed in faded black clothes that are more lint than fabric.
"Whatever," says the girl.
"I didn't take them," the woman says defensively. "I have a way of acting guilty of things I'm not even accountable for."
The girl doesn't respond. She is folding her clothes on the table.
« Previous | Posted by Lily in sketches | on March 20, 2006 01:01 PM | Next »