rain clouds sit heavy over your neighborhood and on the horizon, rumbling doldrum thunder and stubborn arms across the sky. through the windows the dimmed overcast light is filtered and diffused. sometimes your thoughts can feel like atmospheric tension, electrostatic and uncomfortable — sometimes you mollify your darting neurons with personal computers and emotionless scrolling in cruelly-designed mobile apps. maybe you ought to clean your apartment.

you ought to clean your apartment, because when the liturgies of clearing the sink and windexing the glass coffee table and hanging of discarded jackets are observed, maybe you'll find the industrious but useless whirlpool of your mind temporarily stilled. maybe you ought to clean your apartment, 'cause when you find yourself all at once alone in your living room, lowering the final dish into the washer and starting its cycle, you'll find auspiciously absent the fried circuit whirring you've started each day with for the past week. 

you can sit on the couch in the darkened room and light a favored candle, which flickers determinedly from the glass votive and around the room. everything is quiet now, save the steady sibilation of the dishwasher, calmly turning waves in its mouth the next room over. watch the wick arc its incandescent blush onto the freshly-shined coffee table glass and listen to the metronome of the washer, and breathe surely in your place. outside, the last of the day fades from the sky and the intractable clouds break open. as the rain deepens, curbside sodium lamps reflect wordlessly from the wet asphalt mirror of the street.