was sad. Too many people had fallen for that popular line, Cleanliness is next to Godliness. They patterned their entire lives around those five words, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. They measured their own self-worth around the perfection of their homes, their cars and their lawns. They believed that if people saw that they were clean, it might actually mean something.
Everything else was secondary.
Everything, including their own happiness.
Ludicrous.
It was patently obvious that the need to clean was nothing more than a way to enslave.
Dirt was freedom.
Elsie was still dwelling upon the dichotomy of a bruised woman promoting cleanliness when she saw one of her own.
Another Dust Bunny was being escorted roughly out of an elementary school. Elsie smiled, remembering when the schools had been assigned to her. She had been dressed nicer, aware of the critical eyes of the teachers and security guards and the need to fit in for a time. Never would they allow one in homeless mufti to enter.
Once inside there were the bathroom faucets that all the little boys liked to lower their heads to drink from, the water fountains that met many lips, the door knobs, the hand railings — secondary transmitters, all. Children were so easy, always placing their tiny fingers in their mouths. Sadly, although their minds were malleable, Dust Bunny logic was too difficult for their comprehension.
A police car screamed to a stop, and from her vantage across the street, Elsie watched as her compatriot was taken into custody. She moved deeper into the alley. The jails were okay. There wasn’t too much more one could do to add to the endemic filth, but it was an excellent opportunity for proselytizing. Elsie had known many who had converted to Dust Bunny Logic from a cell.
For Elsie, it had been the whispers in the dark at the asylum that had drawn her to the organization, but never did she inform the doctors of her conversion. They already thought she was crazy — as if killing her husband hadn't been justified. In the early days, she’d steadfastly refused to admit that her deed was wrong, reminding the men in white coats of the constant beatings and verbal abuse she’d received. Over the years, however, Elsie had learned that all the doctors wanted to hear were lies. So she’d left them with the illusion that their witch doctoring was valid and, fifteen years later, she was released.
She had entered a murderer and left a Dust Bunny.
No one really knew who had begun Dust Bunny Logic. They had no figurehead, merely a common belief. Even their name was shrouded in mystery. Some liked to believe it was a parody of the Playboy Bunnies. All of those exploited young women were so perfect and clean, chained to their bodies — to their beauty.
Elsie doubted it.
Even though the parody had a certain poetic quality, she believed it was because of the little ones. Not everyone could converse with them. Many even believed they weren't real. But Elsie, like many others, understood their significance and treated the little dust bunnies like the rare, mystical beasts they were. More than mascots, the dust bunnies were proof that their cause was right — natural.
For the rest of the day, Elsie ensconced herself into the mundane tasks of Dust Bunny disruption. She added dirt to the pepper shakers at the pizza place. She placed Celexa into the salt shakers of another fast food restaurant. When she dropped Ativan into the water cooler of a new car dealership, she couldn't help but grin in anticipation of test-drives that would now be conducted by tranquilized prospective buyers.
Very nice.
Very messy.
Even with all the satisfaction her deeds created, the possible fates of the restaurant manager she’d met earlier was still weighing upon her mind. The fact the woman was abused was certain. Elsie knew the signs: bruises, old and new; too much make-up; the inability to make eye contact; the nervous shifting from foot to foot as if her place in life was not yet determined.
Elsie knew them well. After all, since she had been six years old she’d experienced those very same symptoms.
Everything began when she turned six.
Everything.
It was when Elsie had turned six that her stepfather had started the slapping and the pinching. Elsie had spent long hours in The Land of the Under-bed waiting for her mother to come home, squeezing herself tightly into the place where the bed met the wall and pulling old toys and dirty clothes over her so her stepfather wouldn't