So I'm sitting in my sink the other day, as I have done for most of my oft-sited, unnatural existence, when suddenly there is a knock at my door. This was a rare occurrence indeed, unique one might say, in that it had never happened before. Having never learned to walk, I called out to whomever it may be not to be shy and please, please do come in (though since I have no human vocal chords it probably didn't come across quite as comprehensibly as I make it sound – and though I cannot speak, I can type at around 70 wpm; so we should have no difficulty in communicating, you and I, dear reader). Perhaps this is the perfect moment to pause and explain why I did not rise to answer the caller myself. You see, I've been in this sink since I was but a sinkchick, my birth-mother having died while bathing me one autumn morn, collapsing to the kitchen floor where she has lain ever since. Over the years, in the different qualities of light that the changing seasons call their own, I have witnessed her slow but inevitable decay as she returns to the cosmos, never averting her tender gaze from where I sit, no matter how many times I have begged her to do so, not even when I wake to find her staring at me in the middle of the night bathed in the harsh, revealing light of the moon...
We've had many stimulating conversations she and I, or rather, she has listened intently as I have worked myself into a benign frenzy over various subjects that “come to me” from the faint voice of the radio she had left tuned in upstairs in her bedroom before her unexpected demise. There is a lack of clairty to what I hear, my only access to the happenings of the world beyond my porcelain abode, but it is enough to stimulate me intellectually; and using my imagination and the power of free association I have come to know an outside world, as subjectively delineated as it may be, that seems to me to be full of both pain and wonder and endless potential! I had thought that soon this box would be my only companion as my mother completed her return to the ether and that I would have to be content with having inner monolgues until death comes for me as well (luckily, for the time being, the insects that I feed upon seem plentiful and water is always close at hand). That was my fear until today, but then, after all these long years, as I had begun to recount, someone came knocking at my door.
I believe that my clucking must have sounded sufficiently inviting, for the stranger did eventually begin to cross the threshold, hesitantly at first, craning his neck inside, obviously in an effort to determine exactly who or what was attempting communication with him. I seized this moment and called to him again, come in, come in my unexpected friend, let us meet and begin, if it be at all possible, an aquaintanceship. And at this unintelligible prompting, he stepped into the halflight that is my world. I have to admit, I must have presented an intriguing sight! From what I know of the outside world, it would seem that a sinkchicken is something of a rarity, no mention of any others has been made by any DJ or announcer or talk show guest on the radio above. Mouth agape, he approached me, not even noticing that he helped my mother on her journey to nothingness by walking heedlessly upon her fragile bones, pulverizing them to a fine powder that quickly mixed with the dust of her flesh and organs and finally, yes finally, helped her to look away from me, forever. Goodbye mother.
Having committed this mixed blessing, he stopped just there, where my mother had fallen, and studied me. Now, I have not had any visitors with whom he could be compared but his appearance seemed to me somewhat...unkempt. He smelled horrific, though his odour offering up as it did a change to my olfactory landscape, was strangely satisfying. His clothing looked as my mother's had before it itself had crumbled from her frame and his skin hung loosely from wherever it found itself exposed to the elements, especially around his jowls. He rubbed his eyes with both hands and then looked me up and down before uttering but two words: “Well, shit!”. He seemed disinclined to begin discourse with me and after a period of further staring began instead to busy himself with rifling through the drawers and cupboards in the vicinty. He seemed to find nothing to his satisfaction until he came upon a bottle in the “adults only” cupboard up high above the refrigerator. This discovery caused him to cry out with glee and quickly he downed the brown liquid, throwing the bottle when he'd finished just past my head where it shattered against the wall, raining shards down upon my frail person and into my sink. I managed to avoid all but the most minor of wounds and promptly cleared my home of as much of his joy-inspired shrapnel as I could. Just then he froze, standing perfectly still for a moment as if an idea had come to him or a rather trickly problem that he wished to work out before moving an inch further. His deliberations ended with a loud belch. Then he vomitted. His discharge contained a fair quantity of what was most likely blood. He started to moan, clenching his stomach and stumbled off into another room where I heard him crashing about into mother's worldy posessions, now wailing in what was evidently severe and utter agony until with a final, underwhelming thud, silence returned. Oh dear mother! The timing of your absolute departure could not be more ill-conceived! How I long for your hollow-eyed presence! The discussions we could undertake! This strange turn of events in the quiet tedium of my existence begs for analysis and critical understanding! Mother, dear mother! O but you had lingered long enough! Be at peace at last, you who brought me forth so!
Several days have since passed and I fear that this potential friend has met a not dissimilar fate as befell my mother. You would think this would be a mournful turn of events but no, for at least now I have hope! Hope that there will be others to come! Others like him, and hopefully others very much unlike him, beings who will startle me with the brilliant impossibilty of their most singular qualities! And so here I sit, picking the occasional missed piece of glass from my basin, and somtimes from my tender white underside, remembering mother and listening to the faint whispers coming down to me from her bedroom above the kitchen, whispers of a complex and surprising world right over there, just beyond the threshold of my now open door...
