Our Wilted Bed

by Mila Groleger

Laying alone in her bed, she kept her eyes glued to the ceiling. Everything seemed as if too big for her. Her thin figure almost disappearing between the satin blue bed sheets which left space around her on the bed that could easily fit another three people. Her gaze was glassy and still, her eyes unblinking and staring at a point only she seemed to be aware of. The room around her seemed to only stretch out into infinity making her seem even smaller and almost invisible to the quick glance. I wanted to touch her. I did. The bed sheets enveloping her were cold, her hands even colder, her lips too. Her body seeped deep into her bed and was unmoving as if she were made of stone. I sat down next to her on the cold bed sheets and stared into her lifeless, dull eyes. I sat down next to her on the cold bed sheets and stared into her beautiful, soft, flower-shaped irises.

Nothing happened.

I sat next to her on the cold bed sheets and stared.

I stared in her eyes.

I sat.

Nothing happened.

It was dark.

The room was dark.

I stood up to stretch and saw her cold fingers flinch in my direction. I’m not leaving anywhere. I thought and walked to the window. Outside the sun was setting. The houses beyond the apartment radiated with warm lights that contrasted with their silhouetted background. The sky was orange and it took my breath away. I opened the window. Music from a neighbouring house poured into the room and a cloud of smoke flew in through the window, bringing with it the warm scent of melting chocolate in soft vanilla cookies. The sky silhouetting the buildings beyond now turned pink. I continued to stare out. The music slowly faded away, someone must’ve turned it off, and the scent of cookies was gone. The orange sky turned black and the smoke that had previously brough the scent of freshly baked cookies was now clouding my vision.

The room suddenly turned too hot to bear. I was burning up. The smoke was filling the entire room and I could no longer see. It was dark and cloudy and I could no longer see.

I was alone. Alone in a room with a corpse.

I sat alone on the ground for what could have been seconds, hours, weeks or months for all I know. The whole time my body was burning up. Too hot. Too dark. I couldn’t see through the smoke. The smoke was clouding my vision.

Jump out. Jump and seek the cool night air. Jump and find the silver light of the moon.

I could no longer feel my limbs. I wasn’t sure if I still existed. I tried to move my toes. My brain was giving the order but my body was as if dead; and so, I lay on the floor until my body finally started feeling like mine again. I got up. Darn it, where is the window? I looked around. There was nothing to see. The room was dark. Was there even a room left? I walked in the empty void of the darkness looking for an exit. There was nothing.

I walked.

It was dark.

There was smoke. It had a smell... I could smell the smoke.

It smelled like burnt flesh.

I reached a big cloud of smoke and walked straight into it. What is there to find that is worse than what I know, I thought, but in the cloud of smoke was the bed. The too large bed she had touched, and it was empty. She left. The bed was empty. She left. Suddenly the bed looked too small in comparison to the cloud of smoke surrounding it. I found myself back in the room. The room which earlier seemed to stretch on was now too small, I found myself feeling as if I were choking. I saw the window. The window! 

You stayed for her but she knew this place wasn’t made for either of you. She left you. Jump. Jump. Jump. Jump. Jump! Jump! Jump!

I leaned against the window sill, beyond, there were no streets to be seen, no lights to bring clarity to the hot smoky space outside. There were no houses, no stars and certainly no moon.

I was hot. Too hot.

I leaned forward to get a better look at the ground beneath the window but I found no wall to the house I was in. No house. No floor. It was all hot black smoke that made me feel as if the air inside my lungs was scorching me.

I hesitated. Got on my toes. I lifted a leg I could once again no longer feel. My body was gone and my mind was taking control. My heart was gone and she wasn’t going to come back. I pulled my other leg over the window sill and sat. Looking straight ahead. My body was panicking. Breaking. I needed to get out. I needed to be gone. I needed peace from my mind and those horrible thoughts. I let myself slide closer to the edge and looked beyond.

A star. I could see a star far away in the distance, it was the only distinct thing I could see in this dark world and I let myself sit back down. I let my legs hang down into the enveloping, scorching smoke. The sharp concrete of the window sill cut deep into my palms, but the star was there and my body was paralysed.

A then a breeze touched my arm. The smoke seeped off my legs, it was all gone. All that was left was my windowsill and the star staring down at me. The breeze moved to my second arm, then my lips. My body started cooling down. My hands stopped bleeding on the windowsill and as I looked at that star something in my chest settled itself and nothing ever settled me like that. I felt something behind me shift. I turned around and there she was. I’m not leaving anywhere, echoed in my head as I looked at her silvery figure. Her hair was night black, her piercing brown eyes were locked on mine and on her face was the most beautiful, most heart-melting, most comforting, most sigh inducing, most jaw clenching smile I had ever seen cross her lips. The black void was gone; the window sill was gone. It was her and me as we stood God knows where, staring at each-other, speechless.

She was here.

She didn’t leave me.

I finally got my body to move. I took hold of her hand and felt my cheeks heat. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She held out her free hand to cup my cheek and I was relieved when I felt a sudden chill cool down my face.

Keeping her hand in mine, I took us back to the bed. It wasn’t too small and it wasn’t too big and as we laid under the soft, red bed sheets, I knew, deep inside me, neither of us would ever leave again.

Illustrated by Cieślik