You're going to. Our time is up. The mirrors reveal when it's time to clean again. A thin layer of dust on the one in the bedroom, toothpaste and fingerprints on the one in the bathroom, which doubles as a cabinet door.

All the windows become mirrors at the end of the day, when it takes a subtle adjustment of

the eyes to look through yourself instead of at yourself. But the windows will never be cleaned.

The most that can be hoped for is a hard purifying rain.

If there's a yellow streak of bird shit on the glass in the living room crusted over now and the kitchen

window still bears the ghostly pattern that Angela once traced on the fogged up surface

while waiting for something on the stove, she can no longer remember what.

A pot to boil, a formless egg to acquire edges and turn opaque,

a single drop of oil to escape its pan

and scald her out of her thoughts.

Since when does Angela care about cleaning?

The other day at dinner with a friend,

she found herself extolling the virtues of a certain type of mob.

She recently learned several methods of removing stains from

supposedly stainless steel. She has even wished on occasion that she owned an iron.

An iron, more symbol than tool at this point, and Angela doesn't like what the symbol stands

for. She's not a housewife. For one thing, she rents. True, she's married, but there wasn't really a wedding because she's opposed to weddings.

She's employed, in theory, empowered.

The thing about the mop is that it's satisfying. Under the supervision of a therapist, Angela and

Will have been talking a lot about satisfaction. How to define it, where to find it,

whether they can feel it, have it at the same time.

Each swipe of the mop proves its usefulness,

...