gummy ovenbird After the guests have gone and my house is my own again, I go into the ensuite bath to collect the towels for washing and am swallowed into the gummy abyss of a toothless mouth, every surface covered with thick spongy growths. The walls, the tub surround, the shampoo bottles…all is lost beneath an undulating paste of slick pink slime. The fleshy surface floats atop two inches of white froth, like steamed milk. I reach for the bottle of bleach, repulsion churning my stomach. I get the sense that the wall is alive. Not as vegetables are alive, but as minds are alive, neural cables sparking, an awareness pulsing…seeing me. I turn the shower head on the pulpy mess, blast it with hot water, watch it come away in chunks, dissolve, and swirl down the drain. I leave everything sterile and gleaming. But later, in the evening, when I’m getting ready for bed, I check on the bathroom. There are pink splotches on the wall, like something blooming in a petri dish. It can’t be killed. This knowledge takes me by the throat. I vomit into the tub, then scrub my hands with steel wool until I reach bone. 260702 what's it to you? who go blather from