There's something puzzling about crawl spaces. No one pays too much attention to it down here. Who cares? It isn't that important. Why do you want to be self righteous? Save it, let it go. What's wrong with you? Yes, you won't have to pay attention unless you need to at some point. It's like having to prepare for something that would or might happen eventually. Like losing your teeth and wearing dentures at some point. Or losing your hair, going bald on some areas of your head. Or something like losing your own sense of humor, stolen taken by some invisible thief or something like contagious paranoia. And the society keeps reminding you to just relax. Don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself. Yeah right.
I see crawl spaces in between the floor beams and the roof beams, between the ceilings of every floor, or that spaces under roofs above the ceilings. Places where it gets too hot and very dark for someone to crawl to. You know, whenever you find yourself in your room alone in the daytime or nightime. And as you lay on your bed, reading the paper, a book or something, you hear these scuffling noises on your ceilings. And you keep wondering what could it be. And you say to yourself, It must be the cat or just some mouse again, chasing each other. And there are days when you are alone once again. And the sound gets louder. And you begin to wonder if that's a rat or a cat or even a dog or some other feline, mongrel, bigger creature. But it sounds heavier. Hmmm. A cat doesn't sound like that. That sounds heavier. And as you begin to pound your ceiling with a broom or something. To knock the ceilings, to tell them. "Hey, keep it silent up there!", things would mellow down just to find out that it happens all over again. Scratching the wood out of your closets, drawers, your cabinets, whatever that''s made of wood. You find them crawling somewhere again. And hide as you begin to go after them. "Hey, where do you think you're going?"
And as the days go by you have forgotten how many times this has happened before. Watching your brother or your sister pinching his or her nose close, talking like an alien, taking out this dead rat out of the house. "Oh crap, that smells bad, really..really...it does." And there you are, you find each other washing each other's hands, shoes, feet or something with soap...yeah with soap and water of course, and whatever else that smells disinfecting.. like alcohol...Shit! that stinks bad!...Eeeeeew gross!"
But then you try to look forward to change the lights over head. That ceiling. That ceiling that's been repainted all over and over again. And then that crawl space. That small space. Just around a meter or lower. Come on. It's more like walking, with knees bent. No one really crawls up there except the rodents. And as you go through that manhole, that ventilation space, usually through the bathrooms, carrying a flashlight to see what's up there. And there it is. That world up your ceilings. Electrical wires, junction boxes, trusses made of wood, flexible hoses...oh dear.. bolts, and what else? Cobwebs, dirt and the smell of rodent feces. That time you really wish if you could just wash it all up with a giant soap and a giant water hose. Or even for just a few minutes, an hour or two, a day or a week, mabe a month. If only I could remove the whole roof of the house and put it back again..That time you really wished you were a giant...Hahaha.
