She knelt, her knees cracking on the linoleum, and peered into the sink. A single black hair, impossibly long, coiled on the surface of the stagnant water. Not hers. Hers was short and grey. This was dark, almost blue.
She set down her tea, picked up a sponge, and began to clean. The fizzing had finally stopped. The silence that followed was the real sound of something being washed away.
A sluggish, greasy bubble of water rose from the depths, carrying the faint, rotten-sweet smell of old lettuce and forgotten leftovers. It sat there, a murky mirror reflecting the fluorescent light overhead. baking soda in drain
“There,” she whispered. “ Dissolve .”
She was pouring herself a victory cup of tea when she heard it. A slow, thick glug-glug-glug from the bathroom. The one drain she hadn't treated. She knelt, her knees cracking on the linoleum,
Eleanor felt a familiar prickle of heat climb her neck. This was the same feeling she’d had watching her husband, Paul, pack a suitcase last spring. The feeling of pouring logic and love and routine into a situation, only to have it all come bubbling back up, unchanged.
She stood up, refusing to be defeated by plumbing. She fetched the heavy-duty gel drain cleaner from under the sink, the industrial stuff with skull-and-crossbones warnings. She squeezed the entire bottle down the drain, the gel clinging to the porcelain like translucent, chemical leeches. Hers was short and grey
Eleanor stared at the mess. She had put the baking soda in the kitchen drain. But the poison had come out elsewhere. It always did.