Thinking of my beloved, I started vacuuming my house. This time around, I am pretty serious, too. It will take me a few days to finish the job, I reckon. The house is in dire shape after at least a year of neglect. Close to the entrance door, there is much dust and a profusion of small stones from the street. My beloved’s hair is everywhere. But the cobwebs require the greatest effort, for they are all over the walls and ceilings. The ground floor will take me two days at least. Some of the ceilings are pretty high, and I will have to use the ladder to collect all the cobwebs with the vacuum cleaner. The first floor will take me another day. However, I do not feel like touching the attic at this point. It is littered with decomposing insects, but it can wait a bit longer. My beloved rarely goes there, anyway. Given my motivation for this unpleasant job, I started wondering how my house would look if I were living completely alone. In a few years, it would surely be covered with tangled cobwebs. Chances are I would not touch them at all. By and by, my paintings would acquire a rather different look. And an alarming one, no doubt. An occasional visitor would shudder at the awesome sight. The shaman’s den! I can hardly suppress a smile at the thought, but it is time to return to vacuuming. And in earnest.

Addendum (May 30, 2012)

Amazingly, it has taken me six or seven spurts of about one hour each over three days to finish the job. And all I accomplished is vacuuming and nothing but vacuuming. What about wiping of floors? Or dusting of furniture? Or cleaning of windows? Or scrubbing of toilets? At the rate at which I am going, a thorough cleaning job would take me a few weeks. But that is far from all. I would have to repeat all this every few months. As well as keep repeating it indefinitely—say, four times a year every single year. I shudder. And I wonder when will I consider vacuuming my house once again. Next year? Or the year after next?