I clean the White House. On the skeleton-crew weeks—those when they have to shut off the government until they can agree on how they’re going to spend your money—I can only get maybe half of it done. I trade off between doing all the vacuuming, mopping, and glass cleaning throughout the whole house and getting all of half the house clean. So all the vacuuming, mopping, and glass cleaning plus all them finer details required by kings. My lunch break is enough time to speedwalk a couple laps around the whole property, which I should do to stay in shape, but often, I talk to the demon instead. It’s the nasty kind, but I figure it might be my only chance to save the world.
So far, I’ve only gotten the bugger to reveal how it got into the White House in the first place: “All the cracks borne of division for division’s sake.” Whew, I thought. Least it wasn’t for want of cleanliness or any of those persistently dirty areas I’d been tempted more than once to give up on. It wasn’t me. After that, I checked myself. I didn’t know for certain whether demons can read minds.
I’ve asked it its name, and I can’t figure out if its reply—“many”—is literal or should be capitalized. I’ve asked it what its job is; it just answers “you can see it.” I’ve asked how long it’s been here, but it either vanishes right away or says things like “humans do not understand the units.” At lunch today, I’ll take a new tack. Just have to finish feathering off these window treatments—some are from the days of Lincoln, I’m told. Translation: Be careful.
I head down the smaller staircase for staff toward the breakroom and pull out from my shelf in the fridge the corn bread hash my Southern hubby makes better than anybody. All I’ve ever needed to do is sit, wait, and eat in quiet for a few moments, and the demon is there. I can’t exactly say “comes in,” because after those few quick minutes, it’s like the demon has always been there. It’s said it’s like that with the president too. It’s like that with everyone.
“What was Bill Clinton like?” I say.
“About what you’d expect.” It giggles.
I know better by now than to ask for clarification. It loves obfuscation. Hiding. Misdirection. I didn’t learn any of that in church, but it’s not hard to see if you know how to look.
“Did Jimmy Carter have house slippers?”
“No more or less than you or me, most likely.”
That sounds like an answer my teenage son would give. Not disrespectful, but not concrete either.
“You could just say you don’t know.”
“Could I?”
Now that sounds like an answer I would give. Sarcasm. Unless it’s pride. I’m sure I don’t have that problem. I may work at the White House, but it’s not like there’s a custodial career ladder I climbed to get here. Besides, cleaning up after important people isn’t the kind of thing that goes to your head. Not when you’ve seen their messes. They’re just like everyone else’s. Which is comforting until it starts to get worrisome.
“Are you incapable of commitment?” I asked.
“It is not about commitment.”
I’d decided when I was going to engage this foul thing that it would be stupid to lose my temper with it. The whole point was to understand it and its kind enough to disarm them before they entice every last one of us to throw our lot in with destroying humanity. Besides, who’s the crazy one when you’re yelling at a demon?
“Okay. You’re not motivated by commitment. Interesting.”
The demon nods, goes to the far end of the room, and looks over its shoulder. It’s done this once before. I had followed it to make like we were friends and watched the wall turn to gel, then to vapor, then dematerialize altogether. For the brief moment, I thought about going in after it just to see what would happen. Fear, otherwise known as common sense, pulled me back from that particular brink. But it can’t hurt to go have another look just to see if there’s anything you can glean from merely peering into a demonic abyss without having to enter it.
I walk to the wall and wait for things to go cattywampus again. All my hairs are standing straight up; it feels like they’re trying to leap out of my skin. My eyes slam shut, and my legs start to turn me around to run. But again, it’s all about taking the chances you’re given in life. So I force myself to turn back around, and I force my eyes open, and I force my brain to register what I’m seeing instead of or through or behind the wall the demon has again liquified.
It’s nothing. Nothing for a long ways. The whole way. More than the whole way. There’s just nothing forever.
As I suck myself back out of the interminable nothingness, I catch a glimpse of the demon. I’d been so good at keeping all my thoughts to myself, but one squeaked out as I made eye contact with the monster: This is what the White House is made of. And then, too quickly after that to stop it: This is what everything is made of. Which of course makes no sense. I shake my head, squeeze my eyes and correct myself in my mind. No, this is what demons make of everything.
You’re the one who can’t keep the White House clean. I can’t tell where that came from—my head or the demon, which a quick glance over to it tells me is leering at me. Its cackle fills the room so full I start to choke.
How do you know I’m a monster?
Suddenly, where the demon was—or maybe it has always been there—is nothing but a mirror.
About the Author:
Megan Wildhood is a writer who helps her readers feel seen in her monthly newsletter, poetry chapbook Long Division (Finishing Line Press, 2017), her full-length poetry collection Bowed As If Laden With Snow (Cornerstone Press, May 2023) as well as Mad in America, The Sun and elsewhere. You can learn more about her at meganwildhood.com.
