The plumber, a big guy with a high voice, listens to country...

The plumber, a big guy with a high voice, listens to country music as he works. The adhesives he uses stink up the whole house. “What’s that smell?” the twelve-year-old kid who lives in the house we’re working on now asked no one in particular.

It’s a smell the brain and body both register as wrong. It’s a smell that says open the windows, turn on the fan, get away from here. Cold and chemical, it needles your nose, the space behind your eyes, a woozying toxicity. The brush attached to the lid of the jars of rubber cement comes to mind, school projects, construction paper, and the relationship between stick and stink.

I worry for the plumber. He’s in this cloud all day, and the particles travel up his nose, through his mouth, and they have sharp teeth and feed all day on the cells of his brain, chewing and chewing, and the music twangs from his tiny radio and the glue makes a meal of his mind.

[Image: Paint Splodging in the Sink II by Caitlyn Roberts]