Object Writing: Tangled

Object Exercise: 9/30/08
Doorknob
Cell phone
Potted plant

“Imagine that,” he heard himself say aloud as he lay motionless on the floor and pondered the cracked paint on the ceiling that somehow seemed to complement the cobwebs in the corner.  Spiders… spiders were creepy.  He’d never kill one – inside the house, that is.  It was bad luck to kill them inside a house.  Outside – they were fair game… just like anything else with more than four legs.  Yep, he thought, those spiders had been busy up there.  “Wait,” he said aloud.  “Do spiders make cobwebs?  Spiders make them right?” he thought quizzically to himself.  “Yeah,” once again aloud.  “Spiders.  It’s gotta be.”  Looking at the rather inhospitable state of a room’s ceiling and corner, whatever made cob webs must be better off no longer there.  “Well why the hell were you there in the first place?” he found himself conversing aloud again with the silent corner.  “Hell, at least go to the kitchen where you’d find food or something,” he concluded.  These spiders, or cobweb building creatures – whatever the hell they are – are being entirely unreasonable.  There must be something to that opposable thumb argument, he concluded. 

   

Though a nice distraction, thinking about it made his brain hurt.  Of course, the fall moments before may have had something to do with it as well.  The pull on his left shoe indicated that the rug had somehow tangled itself in his step toward the door.  Bested, now he simply lay there on his back, on the floor, on the second floor… on his lunch break…  He had bothered to check to make sure there was no blood.  He ruled out a concussion, though the moments he briefly could not account for were recalled soon enough when he glanced again the cobwebs in the corner.  “Spiders… that’s right.” 

Maybe a spinal injury would result in missing the rest of the day’s work… or even work for the rest of his life.  The throb in his head was temporarily assuaged by the thought of a lifetime of disability pay.  The thought of being utterly, yet excusably, useless somehow made him comfortable.  All the things he could do with his time…  He found himself sighing slightly.  He moved his left hand under his head again; his knuckles cradling his head from the hardwood floor.  This was almost comfortable.  It was certainly better than being at work. 

“What time is it?” he asked himself while his right hand patted the floor next to him – stopping on his cell phone.  Lighting up the interface, he watched the seconds tick away as they dug deeper into the hour that told him the day was far from over.  “Crud,” he replied.  The floor was nice and cool on his bare arms, though just a few feet above him the air stood thick and hot.  He had to get up… first to his side… then on his hands and knees as though the order had been given to drop and give push-ups.  “How easy this would be if I could cast a spider’s line and hoist myself up,” he thought as the blood moved heavily through the pangs in his head as he gained some altitude.  “Then maybe I could leave too and find a better place to live just like the spiders or cobweb critters did.”  He reached finally for the table’s edge and found it between his thumb and fingers that gripped some toast crumbs left on its surface.  His finger tip brushed the morning’s glass of orange juice that was half drained and warming in the sunlight from the window. 

The napkin holder on the table hadn’t held napkins in a very long time.  Who could afford them anymore, especially when a dishtowel does the trick better?  Or maybe the spiders or cobweb critters had pilfered the napkin supply and taken them with them.  The wilted plant on the window sill had taken in a bit too much sun… and far too little water.  In some places it could be construed as neglect, but he liked to think of it as collateral damage in waging war on caring.  “Sorry, buddy.  War is hell,” he told it as he hunched over the table and pressed his temple with the heel of his hand.  The plant did not move in its limp browning state.  He simply stared at it… feeling its thirst.  Before he could realize what he was doing, his right hand had gripped the glass and was pouring orange juice into the plant’s pot.  “Geneva Convention,” he claimed to it.

He straightened himself up and looked at the rug below him.  He pondered the beauty of the ridges in its scrunching and thought for a moment what it must be like to be a bug – nay, a spider – that would be walking its canyon like rims… all in search of a better place.  Though he didn’t look at the clock on the stove, he knew his eyes were telling him that it was time to leave.  “Yeah, yeah…”  He glanced back at the plant and thought he could almost see an improvement.  He nodded to himself, reassured that he had.  He straightened the rug with his foot and stepped over it – this time.  Grabbing his pack, he threw it on his shoulder and paused as he gripped the brass doorknob to the front door.  Looking back on the scene as though he were still lying there, he checked the ceiling one more time.  Work beckoned, and though he knew he was going, he rested a moment in the dusty strands he was leaving behind.