Depression Dishes

My ex once said he could tell how depressed I was by the amount of hair stuck to my shower wall. We lasted another year after that. I’m still not sure why. The truth was, he was exhausting—just like the pile of dishes currently staring at me.

I have no doubt that undiscovered organisms fester within them. In the sink sits a large bowl, with discolored salad remnants floating atop murky water. Molded cauliflower rice decorates the basin. Sprawling from the salad bowl like a solar system, the dishes grow more abstract, harder to identify. This could have been a bowl of ranch or a failed Pinterest microwave dessert. But most likely, it was a horrible Frankenstein creation brought on by a nearly empty pantry and a couple puffs of a sad-looking joint.

I tell myself to practice mindfulness, to be present with these dishes. I pick up a plate with orange cheese baked onto it and begin picking at it with my nails. The cheese comes off in little pieces—not one big one, as I had imagined it would. I huff, set it down, and wander off to the bathroom.

The toilet has pink streaks inside the bowl. I’ll clean that later. I sit down, pee, and use the toilet paper sitting on top of the empty roll. I’ll get to that later, too. I pull my pants up and notice the hair on the shower wall. I rearrange it, swirling it into loopy clouds, then peel it off, roll it into a ball, and throw it in the toilet.

Back in the kitchen, the dishes look livelier than before. They are beautiful and colorful and smell a little damp. My phone rings. It’s Mom.

“You are not going to believe this!” she says.

She jabbers about her Republican boyfriend—gas station sunglasses, cop haircut, boiled chicken for a personality—how he’s a narcissistic, gaslighting, love bomber she wants nothing to do with. I talk her off the ledge, then find my remote and change the playlist on the TV from bedroom pop to jazz. The song is harsh, jabby. My heart beats faster. I turn the volume down by one. Out of the corner of my eye, the dishes look like they’re breathing.

A pile of cold cat vomit squelches under my bare foot. I look down and count six piles scattered across my shaggy rug. My vacuum is broken. It won’t empty unless I stick my whole hand inside it. Still, vacuuming is good because the lines that say my rug is clean appear instantly, and the clicky noise of half-digested cat food being vacuumed satisfies me.

I vacuum, then stick my hand in the plastic tube and fish out pieces of vomit, hair clumps, and miscellaneous crumbs. I put the vacuum back together, holding my tainted hand as far from myself as possible. In the bathroom, I wash my hands twice. On the shower wall sits a clump of hair. I blink. Was that yesterday? I swirl it into a ball and peel it off again.

I return to the dishes, who have grown—now covering the entire counter, stacked in teetering piles. I pick up a bowl containing a hardened mystery substance and run it under the tap. The water stings. A gurgling noise comes from the living room. I abandon the dishes to investigate.

Six more piles of cat vomit have appeared, bobbing softly atop the rug like lily pads. I shake my head, grab my elbows in a protective hunch, and creep toward the bathroom. The hair on the wall squirms. It rearranges itself in a square. Then a spiral. Then: HELLO.

My breath goes shallow. I sprint to the front door. The lock sticks—I jiggle the handle, panic rising. I fumble for my phone and call Mom. Straight to voicemail.

Something in the kitchen clinks—slow at first, then clashing like a metal windchime in a storm. I pound a fist on the door. The clinking rises and falls. I turn slowly, slowly, my heart in my throat, my body shaking.

The dishes stand behind me. A humanoid creature—its face a plate smeared with strawberry, each arm a chain of crusty bowls. Knives and forks form jagged fingers. Its left thigh is a tattered cutting board, its right a pair of tongs.

The bathroom door creaks open. A legion of hair clumps dart across the floor, weaving through the greasy spoon toes of the dish creature to reach me. I shriek as they slither up my leg. I claw at them, fling them across the room. They zip back and cinch around my wrists and ankles, wrapping to the tips of my fingers. My skin reddens and bulges where the hair grips tightest. One clump roves my face, across my brow, from cheek to cheek, before slipping into my mouth. Hair sticks between my teeth and scratches my throat. I paw at my mouth with bound hands.

The dishes reach for me. Its knives and forks slide into my abdomen, piercing gently, as if I were a bite of steak. Its other hand settles on my back, keeping me perched and bleeding, but not impaled. It drags me, choking and squirming, into the living room.

The rug bubbles and froths. Bits of cat food and hairballs swirl together. My eyes sting. The dish creature shakes me off its hand, and I splash into the pool of vomit. The more I flail, the deeper I sink. The dish creature tilts its head at me. Hair clumps jump like happy bugs at the edge of the rug. The vacuum laughs—the sound like vacuumed cat food, discordant with the jazz.