Nathan Alling Long
the road; I laughed at them then, to myself, but it was a deep, despicable, ostracizing laugh. Yes, I once had a life, once traveled the world, but now I am bound to this house, and if not this house, another like it, to clean and sweep it, and now I know that it is not without purpose that those women in Nepal swept the dirt roads clean, that their work was unending but not futile. I am one of them now, the women around the world, who sweep it clean each day, that the world may be a cleaner place; never clean—no, we would never believe such a thing— but cleaner, which makes all the difference. And that is why I sweep and why I will continue to sweep. And when I am done these rooms and this hallway, I will do the bathroom and the other hall and porch, and I will sweep the guest bedroom, that never gets used but accumulates dust all the same, and when I am done with that, I will sweep the steps and the front yard, and the sidewalk, and then I am likely to keep going, to sweep the road, which is not made of dirt but, regardless, will be dirty, and when I have done that road, I will do another, on and on, until I have swept this whole city, and then the next, because I sweep not simply to get things clean, but to set the world right, to prepare it each day, for you, the living.
58