I did not, of course, get round to building the table, any more than I got round to fixing the faucet on the kitchen tap. The wood was ordered, paid for, but remained in a heap in the corner of what Libby laughingly called my “workshop”. The faucet, on the other hand, proved resistant to every effort I made, and there was no lack of effort. But drip on is what the tap did, and continued to do for the duration. A dishrag or sponge sufficed to cushion the sound but this in itself proved remedy enough to acquire the trappings of parable. So Libby saw it. The table, after all, would have been just that, another table, one to replace the table we already had; or an extra table. Not so the tap. The tap was something else entirely. A leaking faucet, no matter how silenced by dishrag or sponge the drip of water, tells a story all its own, a fathomable one, muted, terrifying in its lack of promise. There was every getting away from it; two ways about everything. That Libby laughed on saying a word like “workshop” is testament to her endurance, and much else besides.
Geraint Jonathan
Saragun Springs 
Beautifully subtle. dd
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Geraint
Always a joy. I can see that workshop quite clearly. Tools, stains, dust covered long term projects and a multitude of beer cans and bottles, maybe a 1997 calendar still hanging in there.
Please send more!
Leila
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Geraint
Great title! And a wonderful dramatic monologue/microfiction which creates not one but two individual and representative figures.
The endless attrition of the domestic chore has proved a bane of our existence/s for some of us, not least when the pressure to accomplish such tasks and the timeline for doing so is imposed by none other than someone else.
Such imbalances in the power structure can result in sudden disappearances out the back door, sometimes permanently.
As The Band sang, “Catch a cannonball now to take me down the line / my back is sinkin’ low and I do believe it’s time / …Take a load off Fanny, and…you put the load right on me.”
D
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Reminds me of my expensive plumbing failures.
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Thanks for the comments.
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