Beneath the Dust

The Hotpot | January 2025 | By Lisanne

2.1

Yesterday I heard a young couple arguing at the bus stop.

Loud and angry.

The girl with the raised voice told her boyfriend she couldn’t believe he’d kept using the vacuum cleaner even though the flickering light on top had already indicated a full bag.

I was rather intrigued by how a moment of avoidance can escalate into a public altercation with a crowd of strangers waiting for the same bus.

It’s truly amazing how tension can spread.

How something as trivial as an argument over a vacuum cleaner can start in the living room and end up on the sidewalk, where it reaches the ears of people who were just checking the time.

It suddenly dawned on me how rarely we argue about the things we argue about.

It sounded like an argument about dust and chores in their apartment.

But maybe they were arguing about what lurked beneath the surface:

the missed signals,
the little hiccups,
the things each hoped the other would notice without having to say them out loud.

How many of us have been in a similar position before — when the vacuum cleaner suddenly became the most important thing in the world, and really all we wanted was a listening ear.

Misunderstandings like this could save us so much time.

Thank you for reading! The journal prompt of today:

Curious to see more reflections like this? Click through to see . I’d love to hear what resonates with you.