Multiplex Fandango (29 page)

Elsie lay within
The Land of the Under-bed
wrapped in swathes of comfortable shadows and listening to the sounds of an awakening day.

The Land of the Under-bed
was a pleasant place.

A safe place.

A place free of the damnation of cleansing.

Like a secret cave, forgotten home to discarded toys, old socks and dirty magazines, that small space between the mattress and the floor was where she could be safe for a time.
The Land of the Under-bed
was a place where she could rest without fear of notice.

She had slept well, last night.
The snores of the body resting above serenaded her like a lullaby.
When she’d finally awakened it was still dark.
To pass the time until the dawn, she listened to the stories of the dust bunnies
—
whispered tales of domestic happiness and childhood longing.

Not like the asylum.

No, the asylum was a dangerous place.
No happiness there.

Especially for the Dust Bunnies.
Dust bunnies couldn't live in asylums.
Everything was too shiny and clean, as if insanity was contagious and a dedicated janitor could hold it at bay.
The linoleum floors of the place that had once been her home absolutely glowed with their scourging, the alternating black and white tiles like chessboard roads where the patients were mere pawns of some drug
-
wielding queen.

No dust bunnies lived within the acres of infection free floors.
Even beneath the beds, the floors were slick and hard with only an occasional speck of dust marring its sanitary plane.

The janitors were murderers.

Serial killers.

Elsie had learned not to stare into their eyes, to stare in anyone’s eyes.
One could be captured by eyes if not careful and, if anything, Elsie had learned to be careful.
The janitors pretended to be mere drones, always sweeping, mopping and buffing, but if she stared carefully into their reflections upon the asylum floor, she could see their real faces.
The truth of their evil was in the reflection of their eyes, luminous with the crazed devotion of disciples of a God who refused to allow imperfection.

Imperfection…

…defined by him.

…maligned by him.

Elsie sighed and petted a dust bunny.
She heard its muted
coo
as it sighed with contentment.
She touched the creature in its tender spots and watched happily as it raced around the floor, spinning and twirling in a circular happy dance.
This home was a good place, the home to a host of happy dust bunnies.
There was no fear of a janitor here.
Elsie brought her arms together, gathering a hundred dust bunnies in a warm embrace, promising them that she would look after them as they looked after her.

"Danny, time to get up," came a harried shout from downstairs.

The bedsprings quivered above her, then released as a boy's feet hove into view.
She quieted the screams of panic from her wards, whispering promises of love and safety.

"Aw, Mom.
It's too early."

"Don't give me any shit this morning.
Everyone's running late."

Elsie huddled within
The Land of the Under-bed
and stared through the thick gray thistle of the dust bunnies, watching the boy dress then hurry downstairs.
She waited until the front door slammed and the family car backed out of the driveway before she slid silently into the room.

***

Elsie spent the day doing what she always did.

First stop was the fast food joint down the block.
Breakfast was found in the dumpster
—
dirty, rancid, edible and divine.
Sitting happily among the refuse, Elsie munched, flipping through yesterday's newspaper and shaking her head at the news of the crazy world she had left behind.
From the mound of detritus, she pulled
almost
empty cups and drank the residue of yesterday's melted ice.
When she finished, she leaned back and drifted, staring through the open lid of the dumpster at the clouds drifting by, imagining them as immense dust bunnies flying through the air, seeding the world in an attempt to return it to the natural state of chaos.

Elsie was forced to abandon her comfortable place when her bladder signaled its fullness.

In the bathroom of the fast food restaurant Elsie ran her fingers along the inside lip of the toilet.
She admired the steadfastness with which the staff ignored it.
Like all fast food restaurants, the staff was made up of kids who placed more stock in the thrills of life and their new freedoms than in cleaning.
The floor was littered with toilet paper and the scatterings of a well-read newspaper.
The walls were covered with greasy handprints where large women had lowered themselves.
Elsie licked one, imagining the billion burgeoning bacteria becoming a part of her.

At the sink with the fingers she had just used to collect the offal residue, she rubbed the hidden underside of the faucet.
People would use this and imagine their hands clean.
People might even lower their heads for a drink, or cup water in their hands to clean a face.
Either way, the imperfection would continue.

Before she left, Elsie pulled out a dust bunny.
She spoke to it, thanking it for its service and its sacrifice.
It
cooed
back, understanding its duty.
She placed it atop the sink and stepped back, admiring how strong and proud the dusty gray ball appeared upon the whiteness of the porcelain.
Perhaps people would see and understand.

She could only hope.

As she left, Elsie checked that the packets of pills upon her body were secure.
It would be a long day and she was thankful she had enough ammo to at least wound.

In the asylum, they watched you very closely and made sure you took your medication. Elsie had learned the art of regurgitation, however, and was able to save her pills for later.
There was always someplace to hide the small tablets and the multi-colored
,
time
-
release capsules.
When the doctors finally believed that it was time for them to release her, Elsie would gather her stash and take it into the world.
Even now, ziplock bags were taped to her body, bags filled with a hundred capsules and tablets: Haldol, Thorazine, Ativan, Effexor, Paxil, Zoloft and a dozen others that allowed her to insinuate her dust bunny logic into the bodies of the misguided.

When Elsie eventually ran out, she would do something stupid, again, like wander onto the highway, screaming at the traffic.
It was never really more than a month before the overburdened medical system was forced to release her.
And when they did, Elsie made sure she was resupplied.

Her next stop was the mall.

…and the church where she added Zyprexa to the holy water.

Nobody would drink the holy water, but it was the principle of it.
It didn't hold the same thrill as dropping the powder from six Tranxene capsules into the ice tea dispenser in the food court at the mall, but it was satisfying to get back at the God that demanded such demented perfection.

…and then there was the Department of Motor Vehicles…

…and the gas station…

It wasn't until lunchtime, after she ran her feces-covered hands through the salad bar of a buffet-style restaurant, that she was noticed.
As usual, it was a manager with too much time on her hands and a penchant for victimizing the unclean.

"Hey there!
What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Elsie had been a librarian for twenty years before her conversion and she knew the meaning of the word rhetorical, so she ignored
the
remark.

"I asked you a question, lady."

Elsie sighed and remembered the Dewey decimals of a dozen books that would help the woman understand that this question wasn't meant to be answered.

Luckily, Elsie was able to press a quivering dust bunny atop the potato salad before she was roughly jerked away.
She turned, ignoring the pain, and gazed defiantly into the thirtyish woman's bespectacled eyes.
Elsie noticed a fading patch of yellow beneath the left eye.
And another at the corner of the jaw beneath the left ear, almost disguised by a heavy coating of makeup.

Almost.

"You need to leave, lady."

The command came petulant and whispered so as not to disturb the other patrons who were already beginning to stare.

The bruises were evidence of a certain brutality.
Elsie wondered if the woman knew about the dust bunnies.
She wondered if the woman hid beneath the bed and spoke to them, praying to the dust bunnies to protect her as Elsie herself had done for so many years.

Elsie allowed herself to be
dragged
to the door.
Before it was slammed in her face, she turned and spoke.

"Are you hit often?"

The woman stepped back, her hand gripping the door for support.
Perhaps she felt the question was rhetorical.

"Do you speak with the dust bunnies?
Do you hear their cries?"

The woman stared.

"Do you answer them?"

The woman slammed the door and left Elsie outside.

"You could be me," said Elsie to the door.
"If you would only listen, you could be me."

Elsie turned and trudged on down the sidewalk, shaking her head at the obviousness of it all.

It was sad.
Too many people had fallen for that popular line,
Cleanliness is next to Godliness
.
They patterned their entire lives around those five words, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.
They measured their own self-worth around the perfection of their homes, their cars and their lawns.
They believed that if people saw that they were clean, it might actually mean something.

Everything else was secondary.

Everything, including their own happiness.

Ludicrous.

It was patently obvious that the need to clean was nothing more than a way to enslave.

Dirt was freedom.

Elsie was still dwelling upon the dichotomy of a bruised woman promoting cleanliness when she saw one of her own.

Another Dust Bunny was being escorted roughly out of an elementary school.
Elsie smiled, remembering when the schools had been assigned to her.
She had been dressed nicer, aware of the critical eyes of the teachers and security guards and the need to fit in for a time.
Never would they allow one in homeless mufti to enter.

Once inside there were the bathroom faucets that all the little boys liked to lower their heads to drink from, the water fountains that met many lips, the door knobs, the hand railings
—
secondary transmitters, all.
Children were so easy, always placing their tiny fingers in their mouths.
Sadly, although their minds were malleable, Dust Bunny logic was too difficult for their comprehension.

A police car screamed to a stop, and from her vantage across the street, Elsie watched as her compatriot was taken into custody.
She moved deeper into the alley.
The jails were okay.
There wasn’t too much more one could do to add to the endemic filth, but it was an excellent opportunity for proselytizing.
Elsie had known many who had converted to Dust Bunny Logic from a cell.

For Elsie, it had been the whispers in the dark at the asylum that had drawn her to the organization, but never did she inform the doctors of her conversion.
They already thought she was crazy
—
as if killing her husband hadn't been justified.
In the early days, she’d steadfastly refused to admit that her deed was wrong, reminding the men in white coats of the constant beatings and verbal abuse she’d received.
Over the years, however, Elsie had learned that all the doctors wanted to hear were lies.
So she’d left them with the illusion that their witch doctoring was valid and, fifteen years later, she was released.

She had entered a murderer and left a Dust Bunny.

No one really knew who had begun Dust Bunny Logic.
They had no figurehead, merely a common belief.
Even their name was shrouded in mystery.
Some liked to believe it was a parody of the Playboy Bunnies.
All of those exploited young women were so perfect and clean, chained to their bodies
—
to their beauty.