The Cleaner by Stephanie Wilson (top 5 books to read txt) 📕

I heard the Administrator first.

My knuckles grew white as I tightened my grip on the mop. I made no sign that I was aware of his presence behind me, despite the way he scuffed his shoes along the just cleaned linoleum with deliberate force. To pause in my cleaning would be providing the little shit with an excuse that he didn’t need.

I dipped my mop into the dirty water, my elbows aching with the effort. When suddenly there was a different noise that did make me pause - a barely audible metallic humming that drowned out any thought of the Administrator.

A Keeper was coming.

A Keeper only ever came because of one of two things. Someone had committed a crime, or someone had become obsolete.

My eyes darted upwards to Barry, who had stopped cleaning the shower and was facing their arrival with a look of grim acceptance on his lined face, rag still clenched in his hands. Barry looked in my direction and gave a small shake of his head. The meaning was clear.

There was nothing left to do.

I closed my eyes, memories of Beth stroking my hair with her swollen arthritic hands came achingly into my mind, that sad little smile of hers dancing in front of my eyes. I could almost feel the ghost of her kiss on my cheek.

It’s alright, Harold. It’s not the end, just a different beginning.

 “Ah-hem,” the Administrator coughed, coming to a stop in the middle of the bathroom. The Keeper stopped only half a step behind him and remained motionless, the hum the only sound coming from its polished metallic frame. With shame, I involuntarily took a step back from them.

The Administrator lifted up a tablet and stared at the screen.

“Caldwell, Barry,” he recited in a tired nasal drawl that made me want to wring his scrawny neck, “due to insufficient space, resources and food, you have been judged as being an unnecessary expense by the Area Four Survival Council. The State would like to thank you for your service, but you are no longer needed.”

With that, the Administrator stepped out of the way for the Keeper. The Keeper raised his hand, palm outwards.

Barry straightened his shoulders slightly, pressed his mouth into a thin line and closed his eyes in preparation.  I watched mutely as the electric bolt exploded out of the Keepers hand, hitting Barry squarely in the chest. Barry’s back arched awkwardly before he crumpled to the floor, his limbs jerking like they were attached to the strings of a sadistic puppeteer. Just for just a second, I thought I was watching Beth.

Closing my eyes, I raised my hand and rested it for just a second on the pocket of my jumpsuit. Through the thin material, I could feel the outline of the folded swan my beautiful Beth had made me out of an empty soap box.

 You can make beauty out of the simplest things, Harold.

I ran my fingers over the edges, typically it made me feel calm, but the sound of strangled grunts and the thump-thump of limbs flailing against the floor couldn’t be ignored.  Opening my eyes, I saw the Keeper lowering his hand. Barry’s leg gave one final jerk and then he was still. Eyes skyward and unseeing, it looked almost as if he was pleading to someone I couldn’t see.  

The Administrator made a noise of disgust and jerked his foot awkwardly in the air. Only then did I notice the pool of urine that was spreading out from Barry’s body.

“Clean that up,” he snapped at me.

“Yes, sir."

The Keeper bent over with a whirr of gears, picked up Barry’s ankle, and began dragging him out of the bathroom like a sack of potatoes. I heard a distinct thud from the doorway and I had the sickening thought that it was Barry’s head banging against the wall.  

No one knew where the Keepers took the bodies. I had always assumed that they incinerated them. There was nowhere in the complex to bury them and nobody could travel outside in the toxic air for long - even the Keepers in all of their artificial glory started to shut down after a few minutes. In a world where the sick, the elderly, and the disabled were deemed to be an unnecessary use of resources, why would they even bother with such things as human decency?

“You will have to finish Cladwell’s duties for the foreseeable future,” the Administrator said.

“I can’t do it all by myself, there isn’t enough time.”

“I suggest you make time.”

The Administrator went to leave, but at the doorway he turned, smiled, and slowly scuffed his shoe across the floor.

“I expect all of these marks to be gone too.”

The slow smile he graced me with as he left said it all. If I couldn’t do it, then I would be meeting the Keeper too.

I went to my cart, dipped my mop into the dirty water and stopped. The fact of the matter was that every movement was hard on my old bones, I knew it could have easily have been me that the Keeper had come for today, and I knew it would be soon – because it wasn’t possible for me to do Beth’s and Barry’s cleaning on top of my own.

I was thinking of Beth when I snapped the mops handle over the basin. It took a surprisingly small amount of effort to accomplish, the satisfying crack brought about an immediate sense of relief. Discarding the mop end, I gripped the broken handle in my left hand tightly and looked up towards the light fixture, where I knew a camera was watching. With my right hand, I took the swan out of my pocket and held it tight.

It’s not the end, it’s just a different beginning.

“‘I sure hope so, Beth.”

 I waited for the humming.

Publication Date: 08-24-2013

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