WATER: Water

The self explanatory base of almost all toxic products. The element that forces you to believe in

panpsychism. The chair also removes all hazardous objects from a meal to avoid suffocation.

The rat obsessively contemplates the music interests of a past lover, in order to determine their

motives and morals. The roach can tell the sangria is poisoned by the way the glass feels against

its little hand. It’s easy to assume that panpsychism functions in this way; that all humans,

objects, animals, elements, and deities suffer from intrusive thoughts, and if the roach can drink

the sangria, I’m sure you can too. A simple google search can confirm that there is in fact water

in the sangria, sparkling water in fact.

POLYDIMETHYLSILOXANE: Defoaming Agent

A noise in the hallway invokes proof of a schizophrenic break. You will quickly realize that this

noise is one’s own breathing after you begin to dissociate and your eyes grow weary from

paranoid searching. This realization should bring down your heart rate and admit you the right to

continue on with your day, however this defoaming agent has failed. The room becomes blurry

and all becomes unsure. The sink has not gone down. And you begin to question the validity of

this expensive liquid you bought at the corner store; the brand that everyone swears by. All these

terms that achieve all these outcomes for everyone but you.

SODIUM SILICATE: Corrosion Inhibitor

This is the part where they tell you not to give in, to stop a horrific thought in its tracks,

preventing it from becoming real. Once you give the thought a second thought, the line between

fact and fiction becomes blurred, causing you to never come to terms on any commonalities.

Nothing is solid, but the sink never drains. There is some sort of build up, molding together to

create one giant net that would take millions to untangle. And the bathroom sink is just one more

unsolvable issue to add to the pile. You brush your teeth and a bristle grazes the stagnant water,

there is cut in your gums that the bristle digs into. You go septic and die.

SODIUM HYDROXIDE: Caustic

The woman who knocked over a plate of pastries pleads that she has vertigo. She is nauseous and

dizzy, and needs to sit down. She reminds you of a caricature of a french aristocrat, as her

pinched face scowls, disappointed, at her chicken salad sandwich. You wonder if vertigo burns,

sanitizing your hands. Vertigo is contagious. It is airborne. You have it. You don’t exactly know

what that means, but you know it involves your vision.

SODIUM HYPOCHLORITE: Bleach

A life no one would die for. A life one would much rather die from. Intrusive thoughts lead to

illusionary crawlspaces. A small door in the corner that acts as a solution. When the handle is

turned you enter a dark hall that shortly leads to a room quite like the one you had just left. But

this one is a bit more cluttered. There are more portraits of young women on the wall and books

on the shelf. And the door in the corner is a bit larger than the one before. And each time you go

through the door, the room becomes more full and the door gets larger. Someone left the faucet

on and the water is puddling on the bathroom floor. And, after about a thousand re-entries, the

door begins to morph with the room, and the two become perfect synecdoches of one another.

There is no need for a door; the answer to your problem has become so imperceivable. There is

no answer behind the door because the door has become improbable just as the room always

was. So the next morning, when you wake up in the room you started in, and the bathroom carpet

is beginning to mold, you cannot help but try the drano again.

And soon, as you knew you would be, you are tempted by that little door in the corner. If

the sangria is poisoned, there are answers behind that door. You know that there must be

something bigger at play here. Something is wrong. The sink is not draining.

DIMETHICONE: Anti-foam

When I picture my death, I know that it will not be too far off. The days all mold into one, and

all versions of myself melt into one disappointing flesh pile, resembling the flat, tan fungus that

grows on tree bark like dry vomit. I no longer see myself in anything. The faces of others

scramble, emoting constantly against the numb wall that is my cheeks, foolishly awaiting a sign

of life to puncture through the haze. I fear that others fear me, as much as I fear myself, avoiding

the sick discrepancies that lurk in my movements, and litter my words. There is a morgue in me

that has been expanding since my birth– born as a reminder that reality is fragile. And, when I

die, the physical death will cease to be violent. After a long day, walking back home in the

falling sun, when I can no longer cry or purge, my legs will fold under me, and my face will

scrape against the sidewalk. A definitionless man, wearing a torn white shirt, and stained long

johns will stick my toes through my eye sockets, carrying me away to spread more nausea, like a

purse.