Sister Sink

I sleep low to the floor, collecting things on my windowsill. It too is low. I can lay on my futon and rest my chin on the dusty wooden ledge. This place used to be a convent. Nuns roaming the halls, kneeling in their blue-grey habits. Up the hill they walked to Saint Sophia's, the church and the school. They would have loathed the heir to their inheritance. Me, lazy and godless, staring blankly out the window. Me and my hoard of treasure. Alter to something ungodly. I count as I laze: thirty-three used Ikea tea candles in the scent unscented. A photocopy of the moon. Two drug store lighters. A sticky tub of Vaseline. A plastic pot filled with baren dirt. Some broken sticks of vine charcoal. A real stick, carved like a woman. A bowl of half-eaten goldfish. This last one is attracting the ants. Or maybe they are drawn to the molding sweet tea. 

Yesterday, I added a perfectly autumnal maple lead, half orange, half green. Today the colors bleed into each other. Brown. I think: What illness is this? as crush it into tiny pieces over the line of ants. One crawls up between my fingers. I swash it. I feel a flash of guilt for my lack of guilt. It smells bad. Wrong. Like death incarnate. I think: I am Queen of the Ants. I feed their little bodies with my scraps and their souls with my showering of leaves and big fleshy fingers. I am God to them. I think: it is okay to take this one as sacrifice. 

Across the room from me. Drip. Drip. Drip. Next to the door. Drip. Drip. Drip. Of the white ceramic sink. Drip. Drip. Drip. Of the metal tap. Every tiny chamber used to have its own basin. Mine is the last. I do not have to leave the tiny bedroom to get water. I could exist here forever. Drip. Drip. Drip. Except not really. The sink is no longer running, it has not for as long as I’ve been here. It is simply a reminder of what this place once was. Drip. Drip. Drip. I whisper to the ants: Why does it drip? They do not respond. I sigh. Is this how God feels? Is He, all the time, asking us questions that we fail to answer? Maybe we have had it backwards. Maybe we were created to give guidance to some depressive deity. I imagine God asked me what I have asked the ants. I tell Him: It should not drip. The pipes that once ran to this room have been shut off. 

I move from the bed, my body aches with it. I think: When did I last move? I am at the sink now. It creaks as I lean over it. I look at all sides. There is no drip. I crouch down. Put my hands to the metal pipe. Nothing. I must have imagined it. I sigh. I watch the ants crawling under the crack of the door. And then: Something! I feel something beneath my fingers. Something is happening within the steel pipe. Something is definitely happening. It rattles. Oh, how it rattles. I jump up to look at the tap. I think: Nevermind, nothing is happening. But I hear it. Rattle. Rattle. Rattle. And now I can see in the tap too. It is shaking like it might burst at any second. I think: I hope it's more ants. How mystical that would be? Ants! Glorious ants! But no ants arrive, no water either. I think: I need to turn the tap on. I reach out and lift the handle.

Something strange begins to seep out of the facet. Something unidentifiable. It is hard to look at. It hurts my eyes, like smoke or a very bright light. I close them firmly. Light shifts behind my eyelids creating strange colors. I can see shapes in the colors. Animals maybe. A long-legged dog, a bird, a clawing tree, an old face, a dragon. And then the light is uniform and big. My vision is one white-yellow patch. And then the light fades and it is just the normal murky blackness of sleep. I open my eyes. 

There is a woman there. Between me and where my hand rests on the faucet. I think: Shouldn’t I feel this woman? We stand practically pressed against each other, but she has no body. I see her body, but it is also not there. Ghost! Ghost? Could this be the nun I have searched for? She is suspiciously un-nun like. I think: Give her some space. But she slips away from me and the sink before I can back off. I think: Oh no! She probably thinks I’m a creep now. She does not say anything, just starts pacing my room. 

I feel sudden shame. This was my kingdom. Kingdom of sticks and sticky notes, dirty clothes hiding dirtier carpet, used candles and half eaten food, guarded by my legions of ants. But now, with a witness, I feel ashamed. Her face is neutral. She is not of this place; I do not think. But she is not uncomfortable here, nor particularly curious. She just looks around, assessing. I think: Can she see me? She has not looked at me.

I say: Hello? She says back: Hello. But still, she does not look at me. It does not seem intentional, just disinterested. I think: Should I leave? Give her some space. But no, she’s speaking again: This room is... She makes a polite humming noise as if to soften her insult, before rephrasing: It’s pretty ripe in here. Me: Oh sorry, I wasn’t really expecting anyone to- well you know... She looks at me now with a practiced blankness, a test. I continue: You know, come out of my sink? She looks away, satisfied. She laughs softly and deflects: but how could you live so? She gestures around at my Kingdom of Ants. I shrug: I’m a busy person. She makes the hum again. It is not quite human. It reverberates in a way that does not match the acoustics of the confining plaster walls. She starts again: Well, I better get to work. 

And then she is back at the sink. Impossibly sticking her fingers, and then forearm, and then whole arm up into the faucet. There is no blinding smoke-light-thing this time, just a warping of the space in and around her arm. I want to scream: Wait, don’t leave me! Now that I have known company, mystical company, I cannot go back. But I am too stunned to say anything and to my relief, the rest of her body does not follow. Instead, her arm backs out of the sink, now holding a large woven basket full of Great Value cleaning supplies. And so, she gets to work. I shuffle around, trying to stay out of her way. I think: Do I help? 

I decide to sulk against the sink and text a few trusted individuals the same series of messages: A really tall really hot lady just came out of my sink!? Then: She’s like cleaning? Then: I think she’s a nun?? Then: She’s like 6 foot I swear to God!!! I don’t know how she fit in the fucking sink!!!?? Then: WHAT DO I DO??!! Then: ?!?!???!? Then: a selection of emojis. A minute passes. No responses. I think: Maybe I need to rethink my trust in these individuals. I scroll around for a while, before she takes my phone to wipe down. The previous version of myself would have protested. She sets my phone in the drawer of my desk, where I have never once put it. 

I blink around at the room. Clean. No ants. Everything in its place. It has been vacuumed! I think: Wouldn’t I have heard that? She takes one of my hands in hers. Her large dark eyes peer down into mine. She says with slight amusement: Sorry to dethrone you, Queen of the Ants. Then I feel myself being gently nudged away from the sink. And she goes, her entirety into the faucet, smokey light and all. 

I am hit with a sudden wave of exhaustion. I tucked myself back into the bed. Phone forgotten in the drawer, air smelling like crisp autumn night. Before sleeping I think: She’s opened the window. I dream of a white ceramic planet, with low dewy clouds, everything made smooth or misty. Giant ants march in rows all across it. I watch them from above. Then, one by one I pick them off with my even giant-er hands. I throw the ants out into the strange darkness all around me, until the planet is perfectly cloudy and white. I hug it close to my chest. I breathe deeply.