A Healer’s Geste

The Dread Vacuum, part the first

By Jaeger Matthias Winckler

I was enjoying myself this fine, hot afternoon. It had been a long day and though I had fallen asleep in the car on the way home only an hour before, but I defied my mother’s wish in a cheerful way: I woke up seeming happy and refreshed as we came through the door. I thought this would please her. Little did I know how she would repay me.

Perhaps I liked the vacuum in my earlier months, but if I did, it was because I was yet a babe. I liked anything red. I was naive. About two months ago, I sat in my chair, I saw the red beast and I knew it for what it was: The Dread Vacuum.

Today I sat in the living room happily compliant. I looked. I saw a red cord newly placed into the wall. My love of cords overcame my caution and I did not think of what omen the redness should have been to me. As I reached for it, I heard my mother’s ominous “No!” I looked up and had she not been perilously close and staring at me, I yet would have gone for it. I should have, though my hand might have smarted, for then I would have unplugged the monster and rendered him useless.

I meekly submitted, however, and then! horrors! Loud and voracious noise enveloped me! I plunged myself down, prostrate on the carpet, and cried for mercy. My pleas were ignored, the noise consumed them, and I realized I was a fool. Still pleading, I removed myself from my vulnerable position. I would not allow myself to become sacrifice to the vacuum’s appetite. I crawled, still pleading, toward my mother. I pulled on her leg, I pulled on her skirt, I begged for mercy. I received none. Still the vacuum roared.