A Bed is a Soft Thing

Elena looked on into the night carefully. Surveying it, turning her senses towards the empty manicured football field beyond the fence. Peering into the distance. She liked to think she could control her ears like they were a radio. That she could just funnel in and out what she wanted to hear. And so she willed herself to do so. Perched, and looking for movement. Her mother told her that she inherited the trait of selective hearing. Because sometimes when her mom asked her to wash the dishes or to pick up her brother's toys she would simply not hear it. She would particularly implement this skill when it came time to lay the sheets back over the couch, which had to be done before the family arrived home from church. She hardly ever heard any orders, not until they'd been said seven times, at least, and not until she decided to tune into that frequency. Elena wasn't meaning to be rude to her mother. She didn't mind, however, that the benefit of a far off mind is the look of obstination. But she supposed it was more complex than that.

Awaking her from her thoughts, Grace walked through the sliding glass door, with a water bottle in hand. She drank most of it and set it on the picnic table after gesturing to see if Elena wanted any. Grace was always there to step in and anchor her younger sister who was lost in the ocean of thoughts. She would remind her of the rules and of the path of least resistance. A path she was sworn too. Grace would be there to toss the liferaft and judge while Elena stubbornly refused to be rescued. Convincing and condescending, always concerned for her younger sister's safety, Grace lied somewhere between a diplomat and a dictator. That is to say, her words became actions, and her actions requested no words.

The two sisters stood side by side in silence, listening. Challenging the stillness to break. On guard and ready. Daring a creature to skitter across their backyard. Daring something to break the tranquility of this night. You didn't see many living things in the desert, the dry hot air was too unforgiving. That's why tonight felt good for the family. The power was out on their whole block. And for the first time in a long time, the blinding stadium lights of the football field next door did not shine into their home, exposing them.

They lived in an RV trailer cluttered with clothes and trash. It was damp with the smell of sweat and the past owner's cigarettes. In the summers the paint peeled off the metal walls and it was so hot all the family members would toss and turn. Waiting for the dawn to break.

This was why on a mid-October night Mom thought it was the perfect occasion to sleep on the trampoline outside. Elena had figured it couldn't be worse than the table she slept on inside their RV, so what was the harm. They enthusiastically gathered all the blankets they could. Some fuzzy, some quilted, most stained with something smelly. And they huddled the four of them in the middle of the trampoline, in the stillness of the night. They made up fables about stars they knew nothing about. Jovially, telling tales to one another. Making up games and exploring the reaches of their knowledge in this new world they had created.

Keondre, the boy, told a story set in in the jungle. Snakes slithered across the floor and gorillas built nests made of bright green leaves. The creatures were free to do as they pleased, and they danced in the rain of the forest. The mother spoke of the end of the drought, and how nice the winter will feel. She tickled her son, the youngest at the idea of needing to snuggle in order to conserve heat. Making their proximity feel like privilege was something Mom was especially talented at. 

Elena knew if the people who lived in the house saw what they were doing, they would have something to say. “How you spend so much time together is a mystery to me”. This of course was not what they meant when they asked this. They knew the family had nowhere else to turn. That they once lived in a house with walls and beds and even photographs. That now one room or one bed is uncomfortable but familiar solace. And to them, a bed is no more than a soft thing. A sibling, a car ride, and a trampoline.

What they really meant to say was, “ How come you don't want to spend any time around us, in our air-conditioned house, with our TVs and our linens”. But, Elena had already caught a gopher in the chain-link fence. All she had to do was leave out some fruit. This is how she recognized the trap in their words. This is also how she knew that sometime in the night her sister would return to the trailer, to restore the order of nature. Grace would return to the familiar but uncomfortable cage.

“We are stuck behind this chain-link fence”, Elena thought to say, “ who would release a creature with no claws?''. But all Grace could see was fruit waiting to be wasted. And there is no argument against a hungry mouth.

But even still, it was the scrupulous comments given from the family; people who allowed them to stay in their sedative backyard that she could never quite seem to tune out. No matter how deep she dove into the oceans of her mind, the hot breath of her captors seemed to pool the liquid in her throat. How could she not reply? They lived in a desert, but with her words, she could give them an ocean. 

Elena figured it was this that really pained her mom about her selective hearing. Mom thought that “If she could only focus on the excitement of a new night, on the freedom of this moment, where there was no blinding and imposing light. Then she would see what I had built her.”

And it was true. On that night they were separate from the usual bugs and dirt that filled the yard. On this night they had chosen to be there. It was freedom that felt lush and green. And when Elena fell asleep with the netted texture of a trampoline pressed against her head, she looked up into the night sky. But this time she didn't see something untrustworthy, she didn't fear the stillness. She didn't fall into an ocean and she didn't wait for dawn. She merely looked up and listened.