Love Freedom?
When the dish tried to run away with the spoon.
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It was cleaning day at Fossil’s Mansion, and this was never a simple or easy affair. Everything, and I mean absolutely everything, got scrubbed, polished, washed, swept, rinsed, soaked and generally cleansed — to the last inch of its natural existence — by the Mansion’s battery of domestic staff.
Cleaning Day came about on a monthly cycle.
This was not to say that no other housework took place between each of those special occasions. In fact, each day had its own routine of “spotless checking”: where Matron Sylvia went about the house inspecting the work of all the scullery, kitchen, laundry, and other house maids, to ensure that neither a gleam was left off of any utensils nor a speck of dust was visible on any surface; including, the uppermost ridges of the chandeliers and fancy ceiling skirting.
Even the deepest darkest corners of every room got their share of becoming bright, what with all the scrubbing that took place. Nary could a cobweb nor spider survive in the Mansion, never you mind any ant, cockroach or mice; the latter of which the cats also took some credit for chasing out.
So, you see, Cleaning Day was almost a superfluous situation.
And yet each object in that grand old house knew the gravity of the event too well; particularly, those items that got into daily circulation — like the crockery and cutlery. They were severally scoured and shined — so much so that their sides were rubbed bare and appeared to ‘glow’, all as a consequence of losing too much of their enamel or silver.
The cleaning in Fossil’s Mansion was such that it caused a stir amongst its inanimate inmates, many of whom often declared it time to rebel; especially those that had experience (and the good fortune) of having been bequeathed or gifted to the family; thus, knew what it was like to reside in other premises, where there was more negligence around cleanliness’s proximity to Godliness.
The armchairs spoke at length about such better places and the dishes too grumbled about how life had been much easier in the showrooms, where they had the leisure to relax at length with only human eyes setting upon them with longing.
