I hummed while I worked.

I couldn’t hear anything, but I felt my throat move through the melody. I felt my lips vibrating against the layers of tape they’d put over my mouth.

They were still there: the two figures in the doorway. Humming should have been allowed, but the only real rule was that they decided the rules. I kept my back to them and hummed quietly.

I scrubbed the porcelain hard. The top should have been the easiest part. The only crevices and seams were around the drain and the raised lip at the edge of the table. Why had they let the mess seep in and dry?

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I could worry about the sides of the table and the floor later. There were rules: top to bottom, get it back to white before you move on.

Obey the rules.

No talking. Don’t complain. Do your work. Clean from top to bottom…

But the smell of the cleaning water always made me feel faint. And my hands were so chapped afterward, it looked like they were covered in tiny white cobwebs.

Get everything back to white before you move on.

My rag was saturated. All I was doing was smearing the blood around. I hefted it into the bucket beside me and pretended not to notice that I needed new water. I didn’t want to wait until they brought me another bucket.

No talking.

I wrung the cloth until the pale red drops stopped falling.

I went back to scrubbing and hummed while I worked.