Dusting the past

“Did you know that cleanliness is next to godliness?” it asked him, hoping to strike a conversation. It knew that the task ahead was arduous and lonely, and the human mind often needs indulgences to accomplish such things. 

He was perhaps absorbed in his own thoughts and didn’t need small talk to get through this. He replied half-heartedly: “Not really. Who told you that?”

It tried again, this time with apparent erudition: “I just hear it a lot. If you think about it, the company you keep matters. It’s the same way with your habitation, the objects you surround yourself with, and how you treat them. A cluttered environment is a sign of a befuddled mind, while an unkempt environment is a sign of a vacuous mind. Surround yourself with beauty and aesthetics that speak to you, and you have the power to anchor yourself to the rhythm of the universe. That’s as close to the idea of God as one can get to.”

He wasn’t used to deference in the face of such commentary which he considered as opinions garbed as wisdom. He retorted with a completely off-the-track remark: “Quite wise. And where do you fit in that description? The last I called you from amidst the objects I surround myself with, you were hanging behind the washing machine in the rear balcony.”

It knew that a nerve was somewhere touched, and replied patiently: “Well, the last time you dusted the bottom shelf of your bookshelf, you read the forgotten tiny note she wrote for you on the inside cover of that red book and cried a little. Those are the moments when the universe speaks to you, and you get stronger.”

He was exasperated: “I wish I had a Roomba instead of these damn dusters that can’t keep their trap shut.”