11’1’’04

 

It was a wooden framed bed. No headboard or footboard, but four stunted posts blocked the mattress from sliding diagonally. He sat on it slowly. It had been a long day, and the bed creaked, shuffling against the wall as he kicked his feet up. His heels swung back and hit the bottom board. It had low boards that didn’t allow for more than a shoebox to be slid underneath.

He saw the shoeboxes, dusty and packed with mementos of old friends and gifts. He also saw a dent. He lay on his stomach so he could run his finger along it. It was too long and deep to be made by his heel. But he would have noticed it was there when he first set the bed up in his tiny apartment.

Rolling over, he intentionally swayed the bed to feel how it would settle. His feet pressed against the wall, and he could feel his head pin the pillow down preventing it from sliding off. He almost felt too big for the bed, and wondered if there was a rut in the mattress from how he liked to sleep. No one else had been in the bed to tell him.

He turned on his side and pulled the pillow down under his neck. It had been lumped into a wedge shape, and every night he had to rotate it just perfectly so it would support his head. An annoying little ritual, the only purpose it served was to fit perfectly with him so he could forget it. Like the plant he put on top of the refrigerator, or his answers to his mother who was trying to hard to relate to her adult children.

        But what, if it could speak, would his bed relate?  What if it secretly kept a log, hidden among the shoeboxes below him, of all of his restless movements, of all the things he said in his sleep?  What if it watched him show people his room, point out different objects, even let them sit on his bed?  What would it say about all that?

        Not a comforting fact, he thought as he rolled over again, aware of how slowly the bed creaked.  He supposed then that if the bed could keep note of what he was doing, maybe his closet also kept note on what he wore when and how often.  And his chair on how his posture was, and his desk on how long things sat before he dealt with them.

        This is nuts, he told himself.  He looked at the clock.  4:30 am.  He groaned and rolled back over.   This was his room, this was his sacred area where he was completely alone and completely comfortable.

        Besides, if anyone was keeping tabs, why on him?  Why would his bed have any reason to try and catalog his different moods based on how he slept?  The only really interesting ones are celebrities and politicians, people who move things and shakes things.  If there bed was keeping tabs on things, that would be interesting.  What sorts of evening rituals they do to take care the stress, or to get them ready for tour, or to help them make decisions.

        But what if we found out that they tossed and turned all night?  That none of them slept well?  What if the only decisions they made, the ones that changed the course of history, were made so they could get some rest?  The bed would catalog the shuffling as the President would roll over.  The desk would note how he picked up the phone and who he dialed.  The walls would hear the muffled voice, groaning out an order that would drop a bomb or release a prisoner or answer a question so when he stretched back out in bed he could close his eyes and toss and turn no more.

        He blinked up at the ceiling.  Slowly reaching his arm down, he touched the lacquered wood of his bed frame.  It was smooth, a little cold.  He rolled over and wedged the pillow under his head, and closed his eyes.

 

 

 

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