Linda Nunes, No Small Disturbance
All There Is to Know About Dust
Beth Sherman
My mother taught me all there was to know about dust.
Look at this, she’d say, scooping a gray clump off the floor, holding it as far away from her body as possible, like it was rat fur.
You know what’s in this? Dead skin cells. Pollen. Hair. Tiny little creatures called mites.
Twice a week, she vacuumed our apartment, washed our clothes in scalding hot water, dusted the blinds, the light fixtures, the undersides of chairs, the ceiling fans, the baseboards, the TV, bookshelves, door frames, the hard-to-reach places behind the couch. But the dust still managed to claw its way back. Her own personal plague.
When my father came home from work, they’d start arguing.
I could have done something with my life, she’d say. I was a model.
A hand model, he’d remind her.
So? I almost got a Dawn commercial. It could have led to bigger things.
Coulda shoulda woulda.
Anything would be better than being trapped in this dump.
Get a job then. Go on. Do it.
My mother would clang the pots, burn our dinner. She’d dropped out of high school. Couldn’t type. Who was going to hire her?
She bought a cheap magnifying glass to show me what dust mites look like. Creamy white, see-through, sort of blobby, with eight legs and hair that stuck up like antennae from their bodies. They fascinated me.
Apparently, they ate our dead skin and their poop made me sneeze.
Do they bite, I asked, studying the mites, which seemed weirdly prehistoric.
No. You can’t see them, she said. You can’t feel them.
I would rub my skin, stare at it, rub harder. I wanted the mites to know I was there.
My mother sprayed our linens with a mixture of rosemary oil, eucalyptus oil, and water because it was supposed to repel the mites. It never did. When I got home from school, she’d be lying in her bedroom with the blinds drawn, staring at the ceiling. She stopped yelling at my father. Said she didn’t have the energy. She stopped cleaning the apartment. What’s the point when you’re fighting a losing battle?
I watched dust float through the rooms, suspended in the air. It could stay up there for hours–drifting, at peace.
After my mother left us and moved to California, I wrote a science paper on dust that got a B plus. Turns out she’d skipped over a few things. The average person creates 1/3 ounce of dead skin each week, about the weight of a car key. It doesn’t seem like much but adds up, over time. The average home accumulates forty pounds each year. She never had a chance. Dust also scatters light particles, creating the vibrant sunsets I could see out the window of our apartment. Luscious pink, scorched orange, mournful lavender. Apparently, you can even find dust in space, absorbing sunlight that gets in its way, birthing stars.
Beth Sherman
My mother taught me all there was to know about dust.
Look at this, she’d say, scooping a gray clump off the floor, holding it as far away from her body as possible, like it was rat fur.
You know what’s in this? Dead skin cells. Pollen. Hair. Tiny little creatures called mites.
Twice a week, she vacuumed our apartment, washed our clothes in scalding hot water, dusted the blinds, the light fixtures, the undersides of chairs, the ceiling fans, the baseboards, the TV, bookshelves, door frames, the hard-to-reach places behind the couch. But the dust still managed to claw its way back. Her own personal plague.
When my father came home from work, they’d start arguing.
I could have done something with my life, she’d say. I was a model.
A hand model, he’d remind her.
So? I almost got a Dawn commercial. It could have led to bigger things.
Coulda shoulda woulda.
Anything would be better than being trapped in this dump.
Get a job then. Go on. Do it.
My mother would clang the pots, burn our dinner. She’d dropped out of high school. Couldn’t type. Who was going to hire her?
She bought a cheap magnifying glass to show me what dust mites look like. Creamy white, see-through, sort of blobby, with eight legs and hair that stuck up like antennae from their bodies. They fascinated me.
Apparently, they ate our dead skin and their poop made me sneeze.
Do they bite, I asked, studying the mites, which seemed weirdly prehistoric.
No. You can’t see them, she said. You can’t feel them.
I would rub my skin, stare at it, rub harder. I wanted the mites to know I was there.
My mother sprayed our linens with a mixture of rosemary oil, eucalyptus oil, and water because it was supposed to repel the mites. It never did. When I got home from school, she’d be lying in her bedroom with the blinds drawn, staring at the ceiling. She stopped yelling at my father. Said she didn’t have the energy. She stopped cleaning the apartment. What’s the point when you’re fighting a losing battle?
I watched dust float through the rooms, suspended in the air. It could stay up there for hours–drifting, at peace.
After my mother left us and moved to California, I wrote a science paper on dust that got a B plus. Turns out she’d skipped over a few things. The average person creates 1/3 ounce of dead skin each week, about the weight of a car key. It doesn’t seem like much but adds up, over time. The average home accumulates forty pounds each year. She never had a chance. Dust also scatters light particles, creating the vibrant sunsets I could see out the window of our apartment. Luscious pink, scorched orange, mournful lavender. Apparently, you can even find dust in space, absorbing sunlight that gets in its way, birthing stars.