Talking Dishes​

Issue 19

​I don’t know when the dishes started talking to me. I had to
bend over the sink and lean on one elbow to wash them because my legs were
partially numb from neuropathy. That’s when the speaking occurred. I am not saying
it was loud, but it was noticeable. It occurred when the water ran over
the dishes as I cleaned up after dinner.  I heard, “yes, satellite one,
yes, satellite one, satellite one, this way, this way as you are, yes sir,”
–entirely nonsense phrases like that. At first I found
it rather inviting. It seemed that I was hearing words in the noises of
dishwashing. I continued pleasantly with my scrubber, which had dish soap
in the plastic handle.
One evening when my wife had added some heavy pots, the noise turned against me.
I heard, “Nasty swisher,” quite clearly. Then “c’mon now what’s the commotion.”
A short time after that came “silly foolish silly foolish silly foolish.” I was tiring
from leaning on my elbow and I thought to rest for a while and come back to
finish. But suddenly I heard “just don’t go now” and noticed the sink filling up
with water. I reached to clear the drain and a pale slimy hand came out and grabbed my hand.
It said a deep voiced “Hellooooo, helloooooo.” I didn’t pull away. I didn’t know what
to do. I looked out the window and saw a huge wall of dark water coming onto the house.
“Whop!” That’s all I remember.
From my hospital bed the next day I learned a tsunami had hit the beach, which was two  
blocks in front of us, and had roared over all the houses, most of which were gone,
knocked off their foundations or badly damaged. We had to rent a new house.
The strange thing was that after we moved the same voice came out to me
when I did the dishes. Now we were ten blocks from the beach.
That tsunami had been the first one in that part of Oregon for 28 years.
Often, we think that two events are causal because they occur in the exact same time frame,
but that’s silly and foolish.
 

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DOUGLAS MACDONALD works in a native plant garden in Illinois. He has published in Red Door (Copenhagen), Santa Fe Literary Review, Sand Journal (Berlin) and many other magazines. He was nominated for a Pushcart prize.

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