The Bowels of Hades

Where to even begin?

Water had begun pooling in the sink, and assorted bits of mung were floating out of the drain and swirling around in the increasingly murky puddle. She switched on the garbage disposal and a fountain of even darker "water" geysered out of the other drain.

She fetched the plunger, holding it somewhat at arm's length while carrying it to the kitchen. She had never really been one with the tool. Grimacing and trying (she realised later) not to breathe, she stopped up the other drain and seated the plunger. Holding down the plug with one hand, she wielded the plunger as best she could with the other - not well enough, it turned out, to unstop the drain, but more than amply to send more of the disgusting sewage-y soup out of the sink in a spray of putridity. (yes, I'm allowed to make up words for this)

Ironically (or perhaps simply in an ominous foreshadowing of things to come) it was only the previous day that her husband had shown the children how to perform this exact operation. She attempted it again with the help of her oldest child. More than once the drain gurgled rather encouragingly and she held her breath (twice as hard) in anticipation. But fate, it seems, is not only a cruel master but a connossieur of good jokes, and the only real result was highly inappropriate giggling from her child, and quite a lot more mess.




To be continued. . .