To have seen her like that and call it a shock was an understatement. It was downright unbelievable. He had just seen and talked to her hours before and she had been fine. Smiling for the first time in weeks, which, looking back on it now, could have been one of the indicators. When questioned about her wellbeing, she merely laughed and waved it off as if it were an annoying fly. The young woman went about her business that day with a vigor that had been lacking in the previous weeks, ever since she had gotten the news about…her condition. She swept and scrubbed with fervor, making things shine in a new way, as if they'd not have to be cleaned ever again.
This thought makes him laugh at the irony. Those things were never cleaned again by her hands, so maybe that's why she scrubbed so hard that day. But now, ever since another (a replacement??) moved in, the things shone daily. It was strange to look around and see things that were so normal but not simply because they were clean all the time. There wasn't anymore of that 'comfortable layer of life,' as she had so dubbed the dust. But they were both gone. The dust wiped away by a cloth. The last vestiges of her life wiped away with a sponge and bleach. Her life was wiped away by a cold razor blade. No, he corrected himself. Her body was pronounced dead in the tub. Her soul had died the day she had gotten those test results back.