Body in my Bed
Every time I get home, there’s a naked body in the bed. It’s always the same body, female, 30’s, just lying there, pale in the early morning gloom. There’s nothing even remotely erotic about it; it’s just a bag of flesh really, a little bit sad, if anything. I’m not sure if it’s dead or not (it doesn’t respond to my prodding), but at least it doesn’t smell. I don’t know whom to call in such a situation. Trying to use the phone here seems like a bad idea altogether. Whenever I try to call someone all kinds of weird stuff happens. Last time I tried a foul smelling black goo started to ooze from the receiver. My life is weird enough as is; a random body in my bed isn’t gonna phase me. At least it’s something I can rely on, something that’s always there every time I step through the door. Everything else is a jumble of unconnected fragments, a whirlwind of images and impressions, voices and faces. I can never prepare for what the night may bring. One night my entire flat turned into a maze. I was hell bent to find someone; I was racing up and down wide stairs, scuttling along marble paneled corridors, opening into spacious rooms and parlors, running until I could not run anymore. I hit a dead end; I was in a pantry with a wardrobe at the back wall, it’s carved wood darkened by time. Without thinking I tore up its door. Beyond it there was nothing, just the wind howling in the void, sucking me in before I could grab on to something.
I wasn’t alone falling in that darkness; there was a young woman, her blonde hair streaming behind her like a flag. Misshapen trees swished past me twirling, waving their branches. There was a toilet with four open-mouthed nestlings in a swallow nest in the bowl.
I don’t know when all this started or how I got into this surrealistic purgatory or why, but at least it’s never boring, I’ll give it that.
It was nearing the end of the last of that night’s REM phases, and a couple minutes later Emily stretched and opened her eyes in the early morning gloom.
THE END
You can find Susan Anwin’s previous series HERE.
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