The Line

Allow me to sketch a quick vignette for you.  Behold the burgeoning Domestic Goddess.  She wakes up bright and early one Saturday morning with a glorious sense of empowerment and energy.  She doesn't just feel like she can do anything, but that she actually wants to.  That's right, today is the day that she is going to clean her apartment even though cleaning checks aren't for another two weeks!  She is no longer simply a Domestic Goddess, but the Domestic Destroying Angel!

She dives into the those dishes with a resolve that could conquer Everest; a good thing, considering the striking resemblance between the two.  After the dishes, she attacks the counters, sweeping a pastiche of crumbs, rice, and vegetable peels onto the floor--which comes next.  And this is the climax of our story.  She calls forth her broom--her Flaming Sword of Justice.  She sweeps with vengeance and authority, wreaking havoc on the floor at her feet.  At last, there it all is, like a pile of corpses in a concentration camp.  Now to dispose of it completely.

Here is her Dustpan of Doom in one hand, and Broom of Justice in the other.  The Domestic Destroying Angel pauses a moment to exult over her imminent victory.  Then, uttering a gleeful cackle, she descends and with a swift sure gesture, sweeps her victims to their doom.  But what is this?!  Cackle choked, half-uttered, she stoops down in apparent confusion.  Yes, in her Dustpan of Doom is huddled the majority of her prey.  But there!  Can it be that at the Mouth of Hell some have escaped?!  She chuckles at her own impetuosity, which must have made her too hasty or complacent in her first pass.  Again she attacks, this time with a deliberate movement.  She rises up in triumph, only to fall back to her knees in horror!  There!  Yes, just there!  It is still there!  In this moment the first traces of fear flit across her face.

Let us now fast-forward just a few minutes. Where is that avenging angel of a Domestic Goddess now?  What?  It surely couldn't be the pathetic creature we see here?!  Not this sorry, gibbering woman who frantically sweeps, and sweeps again this same patch of floor over and over and over again.  If you drag her away, do you know what you will find?  That same line of dust at the lip of the dustpan, eternal and indefatigable--defying all-comers to get it into the pan.

Nothing will convince you of the futility of life more effectively than that indomitable line.  In real life, it's true, you don't generally end up in a corner mumbling.  If you're smart, you don't waste a moment.  As soon as you hit that line, you remove your Dustpan of Doom and flip that dust right where it belongs--under the fridge!

But now imagine that you can't do that.  Some way, some how, you are no longer allowed to let go of that dust.  You must sweep it into that pan, no exceptions, no short-cuts.

That, my friends, is Hell...