The floor beneath the chandelier

Original fiction extract.

The ballroom had been emptied after the reception. Along one wall stood a row of chairs with their seats lifted clear of the floor. I waited beside the doorway while the cleaner worked the machine around the last square of dull wood. Above her, the chandelier was switched on, although there was nobody left to impress.

At the machine’s edge, the floor woke in small bright patches. A whole chandelier appeared beneath our feet, its lights trembling whenever the cleaner crossed its reflection. She moved with slow, overlapping strokes, gathering the room’s scattered brightness into one continuous sheet. Behind her, a discarded ribbon lay like a stranded river on the shine. Its twisted shadow looked surprisingly untidy against the newly exact reflections. The machine hummed with a low, satisfied steadiness, indifferent to the crushed flowers waiting in a bin near the door.

The cleaner stopped and lifted the cable over one shoulder. In the quiet, I could see where her last stroke ended. She returned to that place before putting the machine away. Then she asked me to leave by the side door so that the new surface would have time without our shoes.

Choose three powerful words or phrases from the extract above. Analyse how the writer uses language to describe the cleaner’s transformation of the floor.

Write about 200 to 250 words.