Chương 114: Chapter 114: Pick-Up-Sticks - Georgie

GEORGIE

Scrabbling and fumbling at the bedlam I’ve created of handles and bristles, I stack them back into the corner. But somehow they won’t fit, and I end up jamming them together in the bucket like some elephant-sized version of pick-up-sticks.

I was never any good at the game even as a kid. But now, the whole sorry mess somehow knots itself into a muddle of string, tattered threads and electric cable, wedging between wooden slats, getting caught in crevices and gaps between the shelves, until as a broom handle tangles into the cable of the floor washer, the snarled-up shambles jolts, knocks against a shelf bracket and the whole lot drops.

Brushes and bottles and sprays and cleaners crash down around me. Glass bottles of white spirit and disinfectant smash on the tiles, splashing up again over clean linen. A bucket of paint pops its lid and a tide of white emulsion washes over the floor…