The Long Sentence
Elizabeth Smyth
Record rainfall in northern Australia meant it rained in Cairns before I left, and every day while I was away, and continued raining on my return, so that now the towels my husband had washed remain sodden on the line, and black ants have amassed on a damp cloth in the kitchen, and a wide margin of dust borders a shiny trodden path on the wooden floor, up the hallway, around our bed, into the bathroom, back along the hallway to the kitchen, dining area and living room, where I now sit wondering where to start, whether to vacuum and mop the floor or clean the cobwebs from under the arms of our red upholstered chair that threatens to tip any occupant through the glass louvres and onto the concrete driveway below.
This alarming potential stirs me to inspect the floor under the dining table that appears waxy where our feet go but otherwise accepts an embarrassing array of dust, hairs, and clumps of soft grey cobwebs, and I wonder how my husband and son had not thought to sweep this floor at any time during the past five days, how they could have endured feeling it under the soles of their feet, the reason why I wear sandals today, but perhaps they are simply more patient and prepared to wait, as I am not, for the next ecological change inside our house.
The tablecloth with its scattering of crumbs tempts me to lift the edges and fold the cloth inwards, creating a bundle that I carry outside and shake over the balcony before the cloth is dumped in the washing machine, and I select a second tablecloth, the blue one, from the hallway cupboard to spread anew, but for now put aside and take the washcloth from the kitchen that had harboured the mass of ants that I must confess to washing cruelly down the sink, because the cloth was needed to wipe a dark spill of food from the lazy susan plus a thin layer of green mould that causes me a familiar ingestion of despair, which arises from the prospect of a life burdened with extra cleaning solely because where we live in the wet tropics, where nothing remains sterile for long.
My despair can only be assuaged by thinking of something else, the lazy susan, of driving alone with small children on a weekend away and stopping at the Tolga woodworks that no longer exists to pay a lucrative sum for this finely crafted centrepiece that my husband never liked but the children, now grown, still love because of its beauty and association with an adventure to a farm where we fed pigs and milked cows. We protected the lazy susan with bubble wrap to preserve the different widths of dead timber, ranging from extremely pale, almost white, to dark red, but now feature permanent discolouration in numerous places almost matching the ebony stain of the wooden table that I exposed by lifting the tablecloth and now also have to wipe for the mould, reminding me that elsewhere yeast contributes to our food through its brio in my sourdough starter, which I’ve used this morning, and while waiting for the wiped table to dry, I stretch the dough, thankful on balance for fungal life.
Every surface needs cleaning, after only five days away, especially the glass louvres above the kitchen sink that I had cleaned before I left, and I suspect the warmth of summer and an aversion to rain had led the spiders to spin cobwebs between them, which adds a haunted look to the glass which was evidently, at some point, also wet with dirty water due to condensation or rain blowing in and left translucent white blotches, thicker at the edges, prompting me to wonder how I would cope, when every surface needs attention after only five days away, how would I cope when I am older, living in this same house, unable to keep up, shuffling as an elderly person from my bed to the kitchen, too weary to do more than cooking, eating, washing and sleeping, a domestic routine that would allow the cobwebs to build until no one could venture into that part of the house.
Except that here, now, I can do these things and so will keep on with these tasks, while waiting for the battery on the vacuum cleaner to charge and searching for an easier beginning, like waving the cobweb broom under the television, around the door frames and at the edge of the couch, regretting that I had used the stick vacuum without recharging the battery, because in the tropics one must always be prepared.
The old electric vacuum is available right now, so I drag it into position, pull the long power cord to a power point, turn on the high pitched whine that I purposely block with a voice from my earbuds, giving an account, or rather an opinion, of the international ramifications of rapid-fire political decisions being broadcast from the US, which is a lower priority, actually, than removing the head of the cleaner to allow for sucking up cobwebs that fringe the children’s books on the lowest shelf and the power socket on the wall, a suction that restores the sharp edges humans like and lightens the aged paintwork, while sweat dampens my skin, and the warm air blowing from the vacuum blasts my face as I check that all the detritus under the couch is gone.
My dress feels wet, which causes a farrago over how I could have spilled a drink on myself and not have noticed at the time, except that my sweat soon spreads over my stomach, making my skin clammy, a condition amplified by the extra effort of swinging a mop over the floors, adding wetness there too, which may not dry in this high humidity that requires fans to ensure that warmth and breeze wins over moisture, which it does, after a while, as I drift into contemplating the lives of enslaved people, prisoners of war, those working in hostile factories, doing mundane work, repetitive, determined by an external force, work that gives no benefit to the person doing it, because they have no choice, and yet here, now, I can stop at any time, live through it, drink water when needed, lay down, feel the luxury of the ceiling fan, listen to the birds reet-reet-reet-reet-reeting urgently, over and over as if abandoned or neglected and interrupting the distant voices of our new neighbours, people relaxed, maybe old, certainly slow, with their voices now overwhelmed by cicadas joining the soundscape with a constant tinnitus-type sound, while geckos rattle the air-conditioner that came with the house and is never turned on, and large noisy drops of rain land on fanned palm leaves.
After the table and floor are done, I begin cleaning glass louvres, which span vertically almost from floor to ceiling, which means because of their number the best approach is to take my time, first sliding a damp cloth along the upper side to wipe away the dirt, ahead of rinsing this cloth and repeating the motion on both sides of each louvre, followed by the same action using a yellow chamois to dry them. The humidity prevents the chamois from being as effective as it might have been in another season, a possibility that dissolves as a second podcast plays, this time about digital minimalism, and I praise myself for taking on this ritual of the domestic in lieu of interacting with my phone, until I realise that the lesson on digital minimalism does indeed come from my phone and therefore possibly, probably, no definitely, counts as my digital engagement with another world.
At the next set of louvres, a large fly walks over the insect screen, on the inside, which is a positive contrast with the dead wasps on the lower frame, so I put down the cloths and get a tall glass and a six-week-old Christmas card, then slowly place the open end of the glass over the fly, and slide the card underneath, before realising that the louvres now prevent me from shifting the covered glass with the fly inside away from the screen, except the fly quickly moves to the enclosed end of the glass and seems intent on staying there, which allows me to discard the card and pull the glass away and cover the open end with my hand, and carry it out, the glass and the fly, to the balcony, where I release my hand, and the fly climbs slowly to the outside of the glass and rests there, allowing me to gaze in awe at massive eyes, a white proboscis, and flattened wings until ziiing! the fly is a blur and disappears in warm air that cycles from me to plants to me.
Bio-note
Elizabeth Smyth is a research associate at the Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing, James Cook University. She lives and works on Yirrganydji Country in Cairns, Australia. Her writing is published in Meanjin, JASAL, TEXT, New Writing, Tropical Writers anthologies, The Conversation, and Georgic Literature and the Environment. Elizabeth’s research explores ecocriticism, creative-practice research, human-plant relationships, and literary representations of the Australian wet tropics. Recent publications include short fiction “Alone Together” which appears in Meanjin 83.1, 2024, and “A Bird’s-Eye View: Industrial Technology in Eco-Writing Research” available in New Writing, 2025 , https://doi.org/10.1080/14790726.2025.2471747