He felt a strange, hollow pride. Then he got a paper towel, picked up the monstrosity, and threw it in the outside bin. He reattached the hose, turned on the vacuum, and listened to it roar back to life—healthy, powerful, triumphant.
Arthur knelt, peering into the abyss. He poked a broom handle in. It stopped. He pushed harder. A faint, dusty puff of ancient air burped from the other end. He tried a straightened wire hanger, then the handle of a toilet brush. The clog was a geological formation: compressed dog hair, a desiccated grape, two paper clips, what looked like the ghost of a sock, and a fine mortar of baking soda and betrayal.
Arthur stared at it, panting. It lay there, steaming slightly in the cool afternoon air. He had not just unclogged a vacuum hose. He had performed an exorcism. He had liberated the ghosts of every snack his toddler had crumbled into the rug, every shed hair from a golden retriever who had been dead for two years, and one single, perfectly preserved LEGO tire.
Not today, he thought. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, he’d deal with that.
