Brush (Domestic Ponge)

Brush (Domestic Ponge)

The red-moulded handle, where thumb and index can pinch the implement hard as the surplus detritus is swept up, narrows and then straightens out into a long oblong tongue that is perforated for the incision of plastic tufts. Twenty or so pliable but tough lengths of white plastic hair, about half the length of a middle finger, are tied together at one end and inserted into one of the perforations. The process is organised automatically and systematically, so thirty-three perforations on the oblong tongue have inserted these secured bundles of artificial wiry hair, or fibre. Originally they looked like rows of little geysers designed and installed by the meticulous council of a city in need of a fountain for its new shopping complex. Now the geysers are dishevelled; they shoot out all over the place, sprockets are missing, and at the most-used end they have been reduced to a leaning, grey miasma. PL-1492 is its code, embossed on the bridge of the handle, well on into middle age. The date of the ‘discovery’ of America is purely random. The plush, stiff ends of the bristles are beaten down through overwork. They have bent, some have split ends, some have been cut back and harrowed, some have been cut to the bone. They are matted and tangled in places, with no one to look after them. Held to the light it is now difficult to penetrate the splay of fibrils. At the purposeful end, where they are appreciably beaten down and hardened little battlers, puffy clouds of grey lint shot through with dribs of cotton adhere with offensive familiarity. Tiny pieces of wood chip seem to have got in amongst the woollier areas of experience. One or two human hairs have taken a grip and float above the fray, lithe and immoveable, like some mobile curlicues appended by a calligrapher for purely no reason at all. Decoration, hardly. A practical thing, it rests utterly attached to its matching red tray, under the laundry trough.

[Circa 1991-92]