Unsettling Things

A Story by Misha

A flash piece about a dreaded task.

Oh, no. I must do it again. I wish there were another way, but there isn’t.

Who knows what might be in there. Yet another reason I prefer to keep my nails so short that no white is showing. At least that way nothing can get stuck under a nail, pressed up against that tender part where the nail attaches to the skin, lodging there like an unwanted guest. Unfortunately, it’s been a few days since I clipped my nails, and there is some white showing, practically inviting some tiny piece of debris to wedge itself in there. Some determined crumb is bound to make its way under one of my nails, and I’ll be plagued by its presence, feeling as one does when a particularly stubborn piece of meat is trapped between one’s teeth, unable to leave it alone until it is extricated.

But that’s not the worst of it. It could be sticky. Oh, how I loathe stickiness. If it’s sticky in there, I won’t rest (or touch anything) until I’ve washed my hands. The way it feels when your fingers stick together, involuntarily bound by some foreign substance, is almost too much to bear. Washing my hands instantly afterwards is not fast enough.

Even worse, there could be something sharp hidden in there. A pin, a needle – it puts me on pins and needles to think about it. Maybe there’s a lost pair of scissors or a knife waiting to slice into my probing fingers. There could even be a syringe – who knows where this thing’s been.

I’m not up to date on my hepatitis shots, so there better not be a syringe.

But there’s bound to be crumbs. Bread crumbs, cracker crumbs, cookie crumbs, crumbs that used to be something soft, but have dried up into some unidentifiable flotsam – all waiting there to escape their dark prison and hitch a ride on me.

Wasting no more time on my fears, I slide my hand in, and it feels cool. As expected, there are crumbs. There must be hundreds of the little castaways, huddled together, waiting to be rescued and see the light once more. I brush past them, feeling my way in the dark little cavern. Cautiously, I slide my hand back and forth, pushing deeper into the fissure, hoping to find my quarry before it’s too late.

It’s too late.

I somehow managed to find something sticky. It could be anything. I am not going to sniff my fingers afterward, because I just don’t want to know.

Moving toward the back of the space between the cushions, my hand strikes something hard. Smooth. With little rubber buttons.

Eureka!

I have found it. I reach my fingers around it and slowly pull it from its hiding place and place it on the end table.

Once again, the remote control has been snatched from the murky depths of the couch. Once again it is redeemed from the fate of eternal darkness amidst all the other lost items. Why it is so drawn to that dire pit of doom I will never know.

As I dash up the stairs to wash my hands, I struggle to pick the crumbs out from under my nails and feel thankful that there was nothing sharp lurking in those cushions.

This time.