Next to Godliness

Kai pressed the button on the side of his watch again. Blue digits flicked up on the screen: 6.52PM. “Ohhh god!” he groaned, before he thrust his hands back into the sink and under the spray of freezing water coming from the tap.

His hands were numb and Kai struggled to bend his fingers around the scrubbing brush again. The CD he’d been listening to had ended over an hour ago and the thrumming of water against stainless steel sink seemed to be the only sound in the world. The noise was deafening, like he was standing thrusting his hands under Niagara Falls and Kai wanted more than anything to turn the tap off. He wanted to go and throw himself down on his bed and cry without ceasing, to see if he could sob this urge out of him.

He picked up a potato from the pile on the draining board and started to scrub. The skin of the potatoes had long since been worn away and Kai had visions of still being there two hours later, cleaning pea-sized pieces of potato. The image made him shudder and for a moment, just a brief moment, he could imagine dropping the potato in the sink and just running, as far and as fast as he could, abandoning all the worries and the irrational terror that besieged him.

Kai gave the potato a final scrub and laid it down on its own on the draining board, sighing with satisfaction as he finally started the ‘cleaned’ pile. That potato was clean. There was not a speck of dirt or germs on it. Kai was certain this time; it was clean.

Suddenly the doorbell chimed and Kai started, his head turning towards the kitchen door. He checked his watch again – 6.54. She was early! How could she be early; he wasn’t ready yet.

Tears brimmed in Kai’s eyes as his left hand stretched out and picked up another potato from the dirty pile. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go! He needed to make sure these potatoes were clean. This was a special date, their third date, the date when she’d agreed to come over to his house. He was going to cook for her, they were going to have some wine and everything would be perfect. He’d planned it, he’d planned everything! His clothes were lying on the bed, freshly cleaned and ironed and ready for him to jump into when he’d finished cooking, the wine was sitting in the fridge chilling and his date was at the door. All he had to do was finish cleaning these potatoes and he could start getting ready.

The doorbell chimed again and Kai felt a tear roll down his cheek. Without thinking, he lifted a hand out of the freezing stream of water and wiped it away.

“Fuck!” Now his hand was unclean. He couldn’t keep cleaning potatoes with a contaminated hand. Kai placed the half-clean potato back down on the dirty pile and flicked the switches on the tap to change the water temperature. He pumped the soap dispenser, filling his palm with handwash and started lathering, trying to ignore the steam that was now rising from the stream of water. It needed to be hot. If it wasn’t hot, then his hands wouldn’t be sterile enough. It hurt, but it was good that it hurt, because otherwise how would he know if…

“OH JESUS FUCK!” The pain was like gouging needles into his hands, but Kai forced himself to keep them underneath the scalding water. He needed to be clean.

The single potato sitting in the clean pile caught his eye and Kai looked at it. Was he quite sure that it was clean. After all, it had been sitting out for a good minute or so now; maybe some germs had got to it. “No. No. It’s clean. You cleaned it,” Kai said out loud. “You know you cleaned it.” His voice choked with tears, but he forced himself to say it out loud, praying that he could make himself believe it. “You’ve been cleaning it for the last two hours; it is FUCKING CLEAN!”

Still, he couldn’t stop himself from staring at the potato. Maybe some soap had got onto it. Maybe a germ from another potato had infected it. He couldn’t be sure that it was clean. Not any more.

With a sob, Kai flicked off the hot tap and moved the potato from the clean to the dirty pile. Just one more clean, then it would be done.

Kai turned on the cold water again and forced his red hands to close around the scrubbing brush. The doorbell rang again, but he knew he couldn’t answer it. Everything needed to be perfect. Everything was going to be perfect; he’d planned it all. But first he had to make sure these potatoes were clean.

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