My basement as a metaphore

Under my house, almost a separate entity, detached from the daily life above yet breathing with it, and in so many ways maintaining it. It clicks, it clacks, it hums and it whispers while mysterious apparatus opens and closes performing mysterious duties.

The water rolling in the pipes, the electricity flowing in unknown directions, without warning the furnace comes to life shaking the whole house above. It is a working, living machine with shortcuts and extensions, with living parts and dead parts, and those still in question.

Behind all the noise and the frantic activity, in the dim, quiet corners, spiders weave their webs. Elaborate, delicate creations, grey soft puffs moving slightly with each wisp of air.

I walk underneath with my ominous vacuum cleaner and its long black hose in search for these delicate silvery formations of dust and silk hanging from the ceiling, my head up in the sky my legs knocking tools , and nails and  electricity cords.

Rust of all colors, it covers dead electricity lines, that no one needs no more, and pipes, so many in all width and shapes and ages some still in use, some forever clogged and their use forgotten.

My head up, I am on a mission to find them all, in their hidden corners where they grow and grow and wrap themselves around till they smother everything.

The clink and the clunk, the hum and the air leaving the furnace, the vacuum huffing and puffing and the quiet, crafty cobwebs in the corners, It is a working, living machine, my basement.