Very Short Story - The System

This is a short story written for a challenge prompt of "Messy Room" some time ago. It is, to some extent, inspired by my childhood, when my bedroom floor required stepping stone clear patches to allow me to get to my bed. But the thing was, I knew where everything was and couldn't understand why everyone else felt I needed to tidy it up! ;p I am much tidier now but I will admit, there is still an element of system in play in certain aspects...;)

The System

That was the thing that no one seemed to be able to understand. She knew where everything was.

  Oh it looked a mess to the outside eye. It looked like carnage. But to her it was a code. The clothes were not strewn at random but carefully arranged – over the chair if they had been worn once but could be worn again in public, on the stool if they had been worn several times but were still good for lounging around the house and in the heap at the end of the bed if they were due for the washing machine, preferably with assistance from tongs. Current craft projects were heaped on the cupboard, completed efforts beside it. Her CDs were arranged by the stereo in stacks indicating their current status in her music enjoyment. The piles of books and papers were not piled without purpose either – the ones on the table were letters and bills to be dealt with and the books she was currently using for projects or reading, whilst the further they moved from said table across the floor, the older they were. It was a month on month progression, like a glacier advancing and she could find a year old gas bill in ten seconds if required to. It was just her way.

  So why could he not understand that?

  She’d thought he’d got it. She really had. Of all the men who’d been introduced to the system, his grimace had been the smallest, his smile the least strained. He’d been careful not to kick the piles or disturb their placement. He’d barely said a word about it.

  Until she’d come home from work that day and found him beaming in her spotless, pileless, abominably tidy flat. He’d tidied up, he told her, as a special surprise.

  And she’d kept her grimace small and her smile not too tight and tried to look pleased because she knew he’d meant well. But deep down inside, she knew with sinking horror that it would be months before she’d be able to find a damn thing she needed again.

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