4.29.2025

Lady stands by her washing machine, guarding it. This one doesn't  do any work I tell her in Imbecile. Last I was at this time it left moist my bath. Towels.

She doesn't understand me. She waits by the machine. She peers at the display. She reads a print newspaper from three months ago. "Where to go When You Have Winter Depression." I think.

That machine in the corner is going to jump its connection and attack us. I want to warn her but I'm worried I'll just do more harm than good. Some things people have to figure out for themselves.

She guards her laundry. Doesn't move from the spot. I come here because there are tables and free wi-fi and you can sit by the window and write about your fellow launderers like a pervert. She stands. She will not be away from the laundry in mid-cycle. She has reasons for this.

Once, a long time ago when she was young, she stepped outside to watch a solar eclipse during the spin cycle. When she came back in, moved by the experience and the strangeness of it all, someone had torn her laundry out of the machine and scattered it over the tiles. Her garments, her serviettes, everything was soaked, saturated wet and heavy and full of soap. They didn't even steal anything. It was an act of vandalism, of personal sabotage. She assumed it had been brought on by the eclipse, temporary insanity, that the way animals go to sleep and plants fold up during the event, some people just lose their shit for those six minutes, driven to unthinkable behavior.

So now she stands by her laundry and reads old newspapers and she sure as hell doesn't mess around with solar events.