DUST

Sofy Dzhanashvili
03/12/09
English 211W
Professor Henkle




The dust that settles upon the radiator
is enough to put any obsessive neat-freak into a panting sweat. When standing by the door of your room, there is not much that is out of the ordinary: two colonial style twin beds (intended for you and a sister who has long ago married and moved out of the house), a dresser drawer (clad with blackmail-worthy 8th grade graduation pictures), a red-oak desk with a Dell flat screen computer, and two paintings of tulips (one version has slightly more purple flower buds) which Aunt Michelle sent you from the overcrowded garage junk she has stored in her home in San Francisco. It's the room you've grown up in- so completely familiar, except... the dust. You notice it’s presence and instantly say "No, I don't like that." Dust belongs in dark basement cellars or forgotten tombstones or trapped inside Windexed paper towels; it has no place in this room of yours, audaciously taking invite into your residence. The shades are open and the spectacle stands in front of that window directly across from you (the one right on top of the radiator). As the 5 o'clock sunset allows for a ray of light to flash through that window and right down to the purple carpeting of the room before you, colonies of dust, dust, dust rise and fall amidst the empty spaces. The nerve. The particles float about the room, highlighted by that sunbeam that now inches away from your feet, and seem to have found themselves most at home on top of the radiator, which you like to use as storage for a variety of random articles: a torn copy of The Babysitters Club: Little Sister Series, an issue of Newsweek dated back to the summer of 1997, a broken wooden ruler that only measures half a foot and a faded green award you received in 5th grade for having the most creative Mother's Day project. A film of dust rests on top of all these objects. Panic. You cannot tell what type of particles they are, but all you know is that they float about the room and into your psyche and cause a few heartbeats to be skipped. Dust , dust, dust. It is enough to put any obsessive neat-freak into a panting sweat. You cry.

The dust that settles upon the radiator
is enough to make even an alpha-male sneeze, especially when up-close (when your nose is pressed against the window panel). The room virtually doesn't exist from this angle and you refuse to move from your position because you are highly engrossed in the dramatics of the dust particles around you. Little tiny specks interact in the open space and you notice their provocative dance. They are no longer a singular entity. Millions of particles float, fall, settle down and collide, each with a colony of friends and each with a story. You’re entranced as you wastefully fantasize the personification of inanimate molecular particles. It’s science, really. You’re caught in their soap-opera until the show is interrupted when you do notice something new: one of the dust particles that sit on the left-most corner of the radiator seems more familiar than usual. It's a small round piece of lint- a chaos of blue string- which suddenly strikes you: blue Tory Burch sweater bought three summers ago in Woodbury Commons when shopping with your mother during the long July 4th weekend. The thinly braided threading sits coiled in the corner amongst all the dust, tanning in the sunlight. You think "Of course, the lint has the same exact fabric!" and realize that you haven't even seen that blue sweater of yours in over a year. With your nose pressed against the window panel, the string is now only a bitter reminder of how irresponsible you are and how often you lose things. You cry.