Empress (A Tickle Commission)

A Passion for Cleaning

Never before had Hong Yuanji exerted so much effort in cleaning. She never knew the amount of work keeping her environments pristine and tidy would require of her. Not once had she ever cleaned to the point of breaking a sweat, and yet Cao Lee had taken revelment to the chore. Lee wiped her forehead with her sleeve as she scrubbed the floor of the kitchen with a thick bristled brush and a bucket of water coursed with soap. As the Yuanji, the deed would have been far beneath her, a preposterous effort wasted when a cacophony of servants existed merely to do such a job for her. The work, however, put a smile on her delicate face. Lee loved the sense of satisfaction she gained from cleaning a room yo near perfect condition. Meiling, as casually as she lived, did not mind at all Lee’s insistence, as Lee had taken to cleaning as a way of paying Meiling back for housing her.

With her cheeks near blistered red, Lee sat back on her ankles. She looked over the kitchen floor. It had been scrubbed to a new state, one she imagined would make Meiling’s wise, adored mother quite happy. Lee wiped her face off on her apron and stood up. She carefully navigated around the newly cleaned floor toward the sitting room. The house was quiet. She had taken to admiring all the little intricacies in the wall paintings when alone time found her. In the sitting room, she looked over the gentle brush strokes of each painting, all depicting a well known legend or tale. Each individual stroke had a very specific purpose; despite it must have feeling so insignificant to the overall piece, Lee knew that each stroke of the brush were the reasons that the paintings were as beautiful as they were. Each should be loved and appreciated, as they themselves were works of art that, together, crafted a gorgeous world beyond their understanding.

Lee walked through the room before coming to a shuttered window facing the back. Behind the house, Meiling stood along in meditation garden. Lee watched Meiling atop a tree stump. She was barefoot, one foot firmly on top of the wood while her other sole remained firmly tucked against her thigh, her knee pointed outward. Her eyes were closed. Her palms pressed together in front of her chest, her elbows as perfectly still and splayed as her knee. Her arms held from beneath her breasts for balance and resistance. Meiling’s face was serene as she breathed slowly, deeply, through her nose. She had her hair tied back in a red ribbon that fluttered in the wind with the tree branches around her. The wind did nothing to deter Meiling’s stance. In the presence of the breeze, no matter how much it pushed, Meiling stood stone solid atop a single leg.

Lee watched through the window, as frozen by Meiling as Meiling had made herself. Around Meiling, several objects hung by frail ropes from the tree tops above. Lee squinted to see that the objects were potatoes. The dangled like rocks surrounding Meiling. The wind pushed them back and forth, dancing in the whispering breeze. They began to swing all around Meiling. Lee stood watching and wondering what their purpose was to Meiling’s meditation.

One spud swung at such a degreed angle, pushed by excessive wind, toward Meiling. Meiling’s hand shot out. In a blink of Lee’s eye, Meiling had struck the target with the palm of her hand, sending it rocketing around its own pendulumic trajectory. The rope connected with another and both target came careening back toward Meiling. Her lifted foot snapped out at the targets, sending them flying apart. They swung back in haphazard directions. Meiling looked forward, her eyes peaceful and unfocused. Lee watched as Meiling drank in the world around her. With the wind picking up, more of the targets began shifting. They collided with those still caught in their own loosely gliding paths. More of the targets came toward Meiling on top of the stump. Meiling’s lifted foot dropped while the other struck against a target in range, never setting once it was up. Meiling only kept one foot on the stump while she practiced a flowingly peaceful, yet frighteningly swift martial art. Between each strike, she found balance and centered her body with the wood beneath her.