Feline Aversion
An acrid, rotted-earth smell enters my nose.
I notice my breathing shortens and becomes stifled.
I am holding my breath before I am even aware I am doing so.
This is not a pleasant chore.
“Take a deep breath. Let your breathing happen normally.
Can it be just a smell, just a chore that needs to be done?”
A Gravely, gritty, texture grinds itself under my shoes.
A Heavy, fumbling, sifting feeling travels through the shoveling tool into my gripped right hand.
Increasingly the bag in my left hand becomes heavier.
I am aware of the sand like granules that have escaped my attempt to contain them.
“Quarantine! I wish there was a way to see the germs around me. I should bleach this entire area.
I should be wearing rubber gloves. I can’t wait to wash my hands. Oh, that will feel better.”
My shoulders are tight.
My body leans away from the job in front of me.
I react to this chore as if it could somehow invade me.
My mind races with thoughts of disdain towards my pets, my husband, my life.
“Really? Slow down. Just complete the task at hand. Do not pile on.
Is it reasonable that this mundane, daily occurrence should cause all this?”
Before I realize it, the chore is over.
My hands are clean and the floor is swept.
A lifetime of swirling thoughts, papanca, packed into less than three minutes of shoveling crap.
sometimesihatemycat 