My Uncluttering

A clean perspective can change you...

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I never thought things like magic and monsters were real. Sure, I loved D&D and Lord of the Rings and all that, but I knew the difference between fantasy and reality.

At least, I thought I did.

But there I stood in the front doorway, frozen, chills slithering down my spine as I looked around.

The place was spotless. The counters gleamed, catching the sunlight spilling in from the windows. The floor lay clear, swept clean of dirt and clutter. Everything shined, showroom tidy.

Not how I left it this morning.

I mean, I’d clean the counter when forced to because the layer of muck got too thick. I’d scrub the toilet when it looked like some creature from a Korean horror movie might crawl out. And, on occasion, I’d have to bat away dusty cobwebs from the corners. Otherwise, I paid little attention to details, and the resulting clutter only made them harder to see.

But I looked around my house in the moment, and what I gaped at seemed utterly alien: staged like a model home where you’re not supposed to touch anything. Not a place where anyone actually lived.

I wondered who would or could do such a thing. And if they were still in the house. How did they get in? Were they dangerous? And who breaks into a house to clean it? Psychotic Virgos? The OCD Avengers?

I set my backpack down and took off my bike helmet. Left them both on the floor. Sort of a test. Would the Mad Clean Freak swoop in and pick them up?

I waited.

Nothing happened.

Then, I heard them. Tiny footsteps. Getting closer. Slowly.

A face peeked out from the hallway.

Loki, my Pomeranian.

“Hey, boy,” I said, kneeling down.

Loki charged at me, leaping repeatedly to get into my arms.

“Okay, okay,” I said, picking him up. He wriggled, snuggling into me with tiny whines. Very odd behavior for him. I mean, he’d always come to greet me at the door, but in a happy, excited manner, not in this desperate, frightened way.

I held his shivering body as I did a walkthrough of the house. Everything seemed fine. Except it was all squeaky clean, as if an army of professional maids had come through and done a kind of deep treatment that bordered on germ warfare.

Loki started wriggling and squealing as I entered the bedroom. He even barked, which he never does. I put him down and he scrambled straight to the closet doors, barking and growling.

“Okay, buddy,” I said.

I walked over and opened the doors.

“Jesus,” I muttered.

Even the closet had been organized and straightened up. I had only been out for a coffee and the cinema. How could anyone accomplish all this in only a few hours? And why?

Loki poked his nose around as if following a scent. But he just kept going back and forth, unable to pinpoint whatever smell had caught his attention.

I sure didn’t see anything. Except clothes neatly hanging or stacked everywhere.

I let out a breath.

“How ‘bout some lunch, buddy?”

Loki whipped his head around to face me, expectant.

“Yeah? Lunch?” I said, repeating the key distraction word.

He bolted for the kitchen. I got a small smile. Obviously, lunch took precedence over whatever was in the closet.

I turned and headed for the door. Out of the corner of my eye, in the mirror that faced the closet, I almost thought I saw the cover of a box on the top shelf shift just a tad.

I stopped, turned back to look.

The box just sat there. Immobile.

I let out the slightest chuckle.

“Nah.”

I headed for the kitchen.

After lunch, I checked the locks on the doors. They were all fully functional and showed no signs of tampering. I thought about changing them but decided against it. I mean: if someone wanted to clean my house for me, let ‘em. Although that still left the mystery as to how they got in.

Just as I had that thought, Loki came in through the doggie door. I watched it swing. No adult could get through that little space. Was a small child responsible? Some prepubescent neat freak desperate for a cleaning fix?

I let it go and carried on with my Wednesday. Oddly, whenever I pulled anything out to use, I felt the urge to put it back, neatly in its place. But another part of me wanted to test the possibility that it would take care of itself. I didn’t really think it would, but the idea amused me enough to go that route and at least have a little fun.

The next morning, everything was back in perfect order, clean and tidy. I looked around and couldn’t deny the evidence before my eyes: I had my own little, ninja housekeeper. Was it the house suddenly sentient and animate, taking care of itself? Or was it some other supernatural being? And was it benevolently helping me? Or was I a villain in its eyes, disrupting the order of things? And would I one day be seen as clutter and get removed like a stubborn stain?

I pondered these things throughout the day and decided I had little choice but to wait and see.

The next morning, things were, once again, spic and span. I decided whatever was going on, the entity responsible seemed happy to just continue and I was fine with that. I mean: it was kinda cool. A little creepy, but cool. I could easily get accustomed to my mysterious clean-up crew. Loki sure did: he had stopped barking at the closet and started acting like his old self. So, we had magical, nocturnal cleaning service. Crazy, but hard to argue. And, frankly, I liked having a maid.

After the third day, however, things changed. I came home to a broken bowl on the kitchen floor. Since bowls were kept in the cupboard above the counter, there was no way Loki could have done it. Then the following day, when I went to take a shower, I opened the shower door to find the enclosure filled with a massive mound of unspooled toilet paper rolls. I realized my little maid service was upset about something. But what?

I got online and started digging. Eventually, I found the only thing that sounded like a match. I had a Brownie living with me. Now, if you don’t know what a Brownie is, you’re not alone; I never heard of them before. (Aside from the dessert and the pre-Girl Scout club.) Apparently, Brownies were tiny male, human-like creatures that helped do a variety of household chores.

Ah. They were tiny. That’s why the locks weren’t fiddled with. The little guy had come in through Loki’s doggie door. First mystery solved.

I continued reading.

Brownies would happily do domestic tasks in exchange for a nightly bowl of porridge or milk.

Oh. Oops. Second mystery solved. I wasn’t feeding my Brownie. No wonder he was pissed. But it was an easy fix: I’d leave out a bowl of oatmeal, and all would be right again.

I kept reading, in case there was anything else I needed to know.

Turns out, another big rule is to never offer them clean clothes to wear. Some stories say the Brownie will leave because they were only working to earn clothes and they will consider their job complete and paid for. Other stories say the Brownie will be incensed at the suggestion their body is offensive to look at, since they often just run around naked. No big deal to me: my little guy could wear a killer clown costume, and I’d still let him clean whatever the heck he wanted. So, neither “new clothes” scenario concerned me; there wasn’t a chance in hell I was gonna go shopping for tiny clothes for the guy.

My buddy Wendell called to remind me about the game at his place, so I walked and fed Loki, grabbed my D&D gear, and headed off to Wendell’s place. On the way there, I wondered what other rules there might be as far as coexisting with a Brownie. Don’t get them wet? Don’t say their name three times? Don’t play disco polka? I wondered if I could just ask the little guy and get answers from the horse’s mouth as opposed to unreliable folk tales and fairy stories.

Wendell and the guys and I were on roll and played way too late that night. So, by the time I got home I just gave Loki his last, short walk, made porridge for my little Brownie buddy, and went to bed.

A noise woke me. Or, rather, I thought I heard a noise. I could have been dreaming.

I opened my eyes a peep. Darkness hung thick, but something glowed from somewhere, sending a murky, ethereal light across the room. I sat up and saw the cause.

Light from the other room slipped in from under the bedroom door.

I moved as slowly as I could, aiming for stealth. I slipped out of the bed and crept forward, toward the door. Put my ear against it and strained to listen.

Yes. Tiny sounds. The shifting of objects. A scraping, perhaps?

I brought my hand to the doorknob and wrapped my fingers around it. Took a steadying breath and gently twisted, inch by inch. When the knob turned no more, I pulled the door open.

The hall stood empty, but I could see the light came from the main living area where the kitchen, dining room and lounge lay.

I carefully stepped forward, placing my feet as softly as I could each time. The sounds from the other room got louder as I approached the far end of the hall.

I leaned just enough for one eye to see into the room.

I first saw Loki lying in the middle of the room, tail wagging, body aimed toward the kitchen where his eyes focused, watching with imperturbable interest.

I followed his gaze to look at the kitchen area.

There, on the kitchen counter, was a tiny, bald, humanoid creature with pasty, pale blue skin, long bony fingers and a digitigrade stance—its bent legs perched on its toes. It moved each object on the counter and cleaned around and behind it before putting the object back in place. It also quietly hummed to itself. Almost sotto voce; I could barely make it out. Between the humming, his diminutive state and dainty, fastidious movements, the little guy was winsomely adorable.

So, this was my little mysterious housemaid. I noticed the bowl of porridge I had left out was empty. That explained him happily working away. And, clearly, Loki liked him. So, we were all good.

I unconsciously let out a sigh of relief.

Loki’s head whipped around to see me.

So did the little man.

Our eyes met.

His tiny little mouth. His button nose. His wide, childlike eyes.

There was a second where nothing happened. We both just stared at each other. That one second.

Then, in a flash, his head inflated to twice its size as his brows narrowed with fury and his mouth, suddenly much larger, opened, bearing fangs and a horrible shriek.

Loki cried and ran past me to my bedroom.

I just stood there, stunned. Unable to process.

The creature kept screaming…and growing! In seconds it was almost tall enough that, still on the counter, its head touched the ceiling.

I felt my bladder lose control.

The creature leapt from the counter, lunging right for me!

I tried to scream but couldn’t get anything out.

The thing landed right in front of me, slamming both arms on the wall at either side of my ears. It just screamed at me, its jaws now wide enough to chew my entire face off.

Then it lunged madly around the room, knocking over everything in its path, smashing anything breakable, gutting cushions with its talons. It was a furious, frenzied vortex of vandalism. When there was nothing left to destroy or disembowel, the thing turned back to scream at me again.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, salty tears I hadn’t noticed slipping into my mouth.

The creature stopped screaming. Stood there, panting. Taking in the result of its tantrum. It looked at me again and I swear it looked like it was heartbroken. Then, with a choked, mournful whine, it leapt out the back window into the night.

I slid down the wall to sit on the floor, shaking and trying to catch my breath. Then, without even knowing why, I bent my head down and began to wail in a painful fit of ugly crying.

The next morning, I called to get the window fixed and arrange for a clean-up crew to come. A human clean-up crew.

When I finally got back online, I saw the rest of the article I had been reading. It mentioned one last string of details. The ones I missed, tied to the final rule about Brownies: you had to be careful to never get them angry, because they had terrible tempers. Such bad tempers, in fact, that they can turn into a whole new creature—a Boggart—which is like the reverse of a Brownie and will wreak havoc on your home. Things known to anger Brownies included insulting or criticizing them, giving them spoiled food, naming them …

… and spying on them while they work.

Well, fuck.

Despondent, I searched for the last thing I wanted to know. The article didn’t mention it. And though I spent most of the rest of the day searching, I could find nothing to answer the last mystery that now remained: whether or not a Brownie could help turning into its evil doppelganger and if it would be trapped that way forever.

But I had a feeling, from that last, sad look I got from him the night before, I knew the answer.

Because of what I did, I damned that sweet little magical creature for the rest of his days. Because of the details I had overlooked.

And I damned myself as well: I would forever feel the sting of guilt; I would never again see myself as anything less than a monster.

So, yeah. Magic is real. And it’s a gift.

And monsters are real. And they are a curse.

I know.

Because I’m one of them.

It just took a little uncluttering for me to see it.

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