I ran around the display home like my hair was on fire, frantically checking and re-checking all of my hard work, making sure that every single thing was in its place and perfect before the guests arrived. I checked my watch – still a good two hours. Excellent.
It was ready to sell.
I let a deep, cleansing sigh escape my body, ticking off the invisible list in my mind that only I had access to. Suddenly, something crashed through my meditative haze – a great, big blank box on my to-do list: scrub the bathtub.
I sprinted around the corner, almost colliding with a hallway mirror as I skidded into the tiled bathroom. The tub looked clean enough – but clean enough wasn’t clean enough. I pulled my bucket of cleaning supplies from a semi-hidden cabinet that I was hoping nobody would check, and got to work.
It was a strange bath, I thought, as I filled it with hot water and added a healthy dose of chemicals. The old owners had paid for a bath tub conversion only a few months before they’d sold. That meant it had a little door installed in the side, so old people and people with mobility issues could still get in and out of the tub.
I’d done my best to keep it out of the photos and sales material – I had a hard enough time scrubbing the stink of old person from the vibes of the house and I didn’t need a specifically-modified bath to remind anybody of the type of person who used to live here.
I hadn’t heard much from the owners, since they’d hired me to sell the place. Maybe they’ve moved, to open up a business that does bathtub modifications for seniors in Sydney, a snide voice chuckled in the back of my mind.
I ignored the voice – as I usually did – and went back to my scrubbing, dumping in a handful more of the chemicals.
Wait… how many handfuls has it been? I wondered, as my vision started to go dark at the edges.
Oh god.