There is an ancient statue in the desert, old and nearly forgotten. Unseen until recent seismic tremors freed it from the sands. It is human at parts and fish at others. Why was it built? What does it represent? Is there any relationship between the seismic tremors and the active volcano the statue faces? Its creators are long gone. Only the mysteries remain. That and the debris caked thick all over the statue.

The years have not been kind to the stone monument lingering in the desert. Sand and wind-swept debris obscure the details of the structure beneath. That’s what brings you here, not the history, not even the details. You unpack your hazmat suit from your van first. Then the ladders. The scaffolding has already been delivered on site. You unpack the power washer, a few nozzles to swap, plus soap that’s safe on stone.

You have a Prime Vista Pro, the end result of a number of odd jobs with lesser models. You select a nozzle: the yellow one that sprays water across a 15-degree spread. It doesn’t have the coverage you want, but with this level of grime you’re willing to sacrifice coverage for power. You turn on the power washer, point the nozzle at the base of the monument, and pull the trigger.

It wasn’t that long ago that you started the business with the van itself. Harper bought you the van. He got it cheap at an auction, under your budgeted price, but where that auction found it must have been some unholy hell of mud and dirt.

That was your first job. You had to do it; it wouldn’t have been a good look if you showed up to jobs in a van freshly dug up from the tar pits. You had an old Prime Vista 1500 back then. The rust didn’t come out quite as easily as the rest of the dirt, but you persisted.

This was, this is, this will be a job of persistence, a slow and steady lap toward the inevitable dictated by the pace of your own efforts. This is not for everyone. This is for that specific someone who can find solace in taking a thing at its absolute worst and peeling back the layers, bit by bit, revealing the perfection that was always there.

It was a slow process, even that van. You started off with broad strokes, trying out the larger angled nozzles before realizing they still left far too much residual dirt. You sprayed off the windshield, the hood. You swept the power washer across the side doors, both driver and passenger sides. You cleaned off the back door. The top of the van, the bottom. Then the tires.

Things became more granular as you swapped in the red zero-degree angle nozzle. The zero-degree nozzles have little coverage, only pressure. You washed off the wipers, the mirrors. You washed off the handles on the doors. The exhaust. The grill. The headlights. The license plates.

It took time, but you broke it up into smaller tasks, and turned the larger job into a series of accomplishments. It was a long process, but you focused on these smaller accomplishments, and before you knew it you were done. The van that was sitting in your garage covered in muck now had a pristine sheen to it, ready to be taken out to jobs.

It wasn’t long before you bought a new power washer, the medium duty Urban X U2. You still used the Vista every now and again. The expense of the Urban didn’t allow for much to be spent on nozzles, and the zero-degree nozzle didn’t come with the washer. The Urban X U2 power washer carried you through a few tough jobs, but there was always the want for it to be just a little more powerful, especially as you found yourself cleaning the same areas with lower angle nozzles to get any sort of effect.

When you upgraded to the Prime Vista 3000 you knew you had to save money to make sure you had all of the right nozzles, and you did. Your other power washers began to collect dust with every new replacement. Maybe one day you’ll hire yourself out to clean them.

Some jobs, like the dirt bike or the SUV, were quick and simple. Others you came back to. You didn’t clean the park in one day. You left and did a smaller job and came back to it, cleaning up a little bit more every time. You remember when you started to work on the park and the feeling of how much time it would take. You remember finishing the park and feeling surprised to be already done.

The ancient statue isn’t much different from the van. It’s a lot larger, sure, and made of many more parts, that’s to be certain. It will take longer to do. You pick a podcast to listen to. You’ve been listening to podcasts as you work lately. They pair well with the slow and methodical scrubbing of dirt and grime and mud and rust.

You start from the top of the statue with broad strokes at first. You begin with the helm worn by the ancient statue and work your way down. You look at the sections of dirt, work them down until there is nothing left.

There are crevices in the ancient statue, corners and cuts that aren’t so easy to clean off. You liked cleaning off the subway platform more, even the washroom, because of how flat its surfaces were. The ancient statue is like the fortune tellers’ cart. You move ladders and scaffolding around, back and forth, trying to find that right angle to clean out that last speck of dirt.

It is a slow and steady process, but you manage. You break it down into those smaller parts, celebrate those little victories. You turn on a podcast sometimes. You relax, for just a moment, and around you the loudest sound that can be heard is that of the stream of water splashing, watching as a jewel, sometimes a literal jewel but often a figurative one, is slowly revealed from under layers of dirt and grime.

Review on Xbox

9/10