"Matter is the Problem of the House" by Ben Gibbons

Matter is the problem of the house, which is the problem with me. Matter and the problem of the house can be neither created nor destroyed, only transferred, transformed. Press on the spot, the pustule, where the problem lies, and it ducks under the thumb and pops up in a different place, like one of those elastic toys filled with glitter gel. Matter is the problem of the house, and sadness is the problem of matter, which is the problem with me. Once sadness arrives and curls up, like a mouse behind a stove, it will move, but it will not be shooed away. The stove is one problem of the house, encompassing the mouse that hides behind it—existing only in the corner of the eye—and an inability to hold a temperature between three- and four-hundred degrees. The problem before the stove was the door with the broken latch, but when the latch was fixed, the problem was not, only sent downstairs. It now takes the form of mouse shit pellets on the floor and goopy raw sourdough. Matter is the law of the house, and the law of sadness. Sadness can be cut with a razor blade. It can be lifted repeatedly and converted to muscle mass. It can be ground up and rolled into cigarette papers. It can be mixed with bitters and sipped. It can be volleyed from the mouth or swung to cause damage. Sadness can be transferred, transformed, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The corner of the house is sinking into the ground now because the windows were treated for wasps. A dry, crinkling sting is now an egg wobbling down a tilted counter. A specific longing for quiet, treelined streets is now a diffuse sense of things ending. Matter is the problem of the house, and sadness is the problem of matter. Matter and sadness can be shrunk almost enough to forget, but even then, forgetting is not destroying, because the problem of matter is the problem with me. Outside my window the construction vehicles roar, pushing around problems.

Ben Gibbons is a Pittsburgh-based writer; his blog, Bored In Pittsburgh, covers the local music community, and his fiction has been published in Tupelo Quarterly, the Dark Mountain Project, Allium, and Cotton Xenomorph.