My arch nemesis

Society6

My arch nemesis lives upstairs.  She is the mirror image of me, but with carelessly shorn hair, a crazed look in her eyes, and a mouth permanently shaped in a smirk.

Some days she’s stealthy.  She’ll slip on an all black catsuit and pull a mask over her face (what’s the disguise for, we all know who you are).  She then slides silently downstairs, daintily tipping over carefully stacked jars and canisters.  If we’re unlucky that particular day, she’ll coyly bump over rows and rows of bookshelves, leaving behind a mountain of books behind to pick up and reshelve.

Other days, she’ll charge through with trumpets blaring, a stampeding elephant through the halls of my sanity.  Without a care of what she tramples on her rampage, she blindly picks a direction or all directions and bursts through with no regard of anything in her way.  The path that my enemy takes can vary, and most times she strikes without warning.  She can wreak havoc in the matter of seconds or take her sweet time.  Either way, the intrusion is complete and the damage is done.

After each instance, I spend hours crouched over, carefully setting everything back in place where it belongs.  It’s a tedious and tiring process and unfortunately, one that doesn’t get any easier with repetition.

I’ve gotten really tired of picking up after her.  These days, I feel as though I use all of my energy cleaning up her wreckage.  And perhaps the right answer is leave it be and let it alone, for the moment at least.  There are portions of my head that are delightfully cobwebby, unorganized, and disheveled, a sort of abandoned library.  It’s romantical and a little eerie, with floaty dust motes waltzing around in shafts of sunlight.

So maybe next time my arch nemesis makes an appearance, I’ll invite her in with open arms for a glass of wine or peanut butter cookies.  And after she wears out her welcome, give her the boot.