Author’s note: This a short piece written for the Soaring Twenties Social Club Symposium. Every month a roving band of flâneurs, artists, writers and layabouts create something around a set theme. For July (which is the August issue, I’m told), the theme was procrastination.
It needs to be done.
Those dishes have been sitting 3 days now, the food crusted on, a mortar of tomato and meat drippings. Pasta hardened like brittle steel. Splintered shards to stab the unwary.
I gritted my teeth and got on with it. Soap, too much. Water, too hot. Energy, too low. A ten minute job two days ago now takes an hour, scrubbing the encrusted remains of dinners long gone by. Filthy habit, I should never have let it slide. I play a podcast from months ago I never got round to and scrub to the sound of Barnsley brogue.
Hello, welcome.
The distraction gets me through. The last plate, the last cup, that one last spoon that’s always missed. On to the next job.
It needs to be done.
The bin is overflowing. Ethan Hunt would envy the care with which I extract the edges from where they were pushed down by a carelessly tossed box. Lift, gently, lift, slow, lift… The remains of last night’s dinner tip and tumble onto the floor. My mother isn’t here but I can still feel her blushing at my response. Not careful enough. Another job to do. After this one. I take the extracted bag out to the bin. Check. Done. What was next again?
Ah, yes. It needs to be done.
Papers lie strewn across the desk. Hopeless. How can anyone work in this chaos? Somehow I do. Mostly. The guarantee I need to claim, still sitting there three weeks later. I pause to do that. It’s not the task at hand but it needs done, right? Paper goes into a pile, shelved for later. Much later. Strewn cans and bottles find a temporary home in a box before going out to the recycling bin (the dark grey one, not the black one, important to get that right). I should really hoover this mess. I do.
Time to get to it.
It needs to be done after all.
I ease myself into the desk chair, running my hands over the newly excavated wood. So much easier to work with all that gone. So much easier to focus. The email I really needed to write, finally time to write it. Resolutely focused, I close down Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Amazon, WhatsApp, Telegram, my other two email accounts, BBC News, Feedly, Pocket, and even Discord. The clack of the keys echoes in the room, louder than before now that the sound-deadening clutter is no longer suppressing the hard wood of the desk. No, I don’t want to change that to “would you like to” I meant what I said you stupid machine. Ugh. Done. Am I? I think it’s done. It seems okay. Maybe I should tweak that sentence. Yeah. Done. No wait, back to what it was. That’s better. But should I say kind regards or warm regards? Hmmm. I don’t want to offend them. Did I address it right? Definitely the right email? Yeah. Done. Done. Okay, send it. Done.
Ah, great. 11pm.
Late to bed again and I never even started writing the chapter I meant to finish today.
There’s always tomorrow.
Isn’t there?