It's Over....and Over

The sun rose again and, as it filtered through the filmy green curtains, my bedroom walls looked muddier than usual. I rubbed my eyes to wake up and the corners were crusty where the salt had leaked out during my dreams. Last night, the dream took me close to the ocean and the air was thick, the atmosphere rising, evaporating into a gray, misty fugue that hung low over the black water.  

I love the ocean and its changeable nature. Sometimes it feels like home, sometimes like a treasure to be visited infrequently, sometimes like a menace. During the night the ocean depths rose up into the fog and swallowed the sand, leaving me stranded in the island of my hotel, alone somehow, though the rooms and the beach below had been writhing with vacationers only moments before.  

My cries and tears amounted to nothing. The blustering waves reached my window and I awoke. Today would be no different than any other in the last year, although this brown light in my bedroom was strange.  

Coming and going hadn’t mattered for ages. Everything was delivered to the doorstep; morning, noon and night. Buttons were pushed and materials appeared. Delivery vans dominated the roadways and, through my windows, I had witnessed several of their fender benders. Pipsqueak, my dachshund, was getting fat and I had hardly noticed. The TV was programmed to turn off at midnight so we could get some sleep.  

This morning, I didn’t want to rise. The inertia had settled in long ago and nothing much mattered except watching and waiting for the right delivery van to stop at my door. Today, the dirty colored light reinforced my lethargy. According to some timeworn tradition, morning was meant to be celebrated with a hearty breakfast and a lot of strenuous labor. Another big meal and a nap were destined for noon. Evening brought families back together to discuss their days over a fine supper.  

But now, work was almost irrelevant and could be done anytime; meals were stored in the freezer or boxes on the shelf. People lived alone. Life was an unpaintable, flat, gray canvas. Mine had been monotonous enough without the lockdown and, now, I was habituated to its enforced tedium. Maybe, in a few days, I’d move the TV into the bedroom.

Talkshows and soap operas were repetitive and incomplete, but still satisfying somehow, to know those programs were locked into a repeating cycle of meaninglessness, like my own life. Why should I get off the sofa unless I was hungry or needed to pee?

Those programs were as addicting as they were meant to be. A palliative to soothe the boredom, itself, into a smooth, steady acceptance of nothingness. I was also fatter than I’d ever been and had to sort of roll myself off the couch if I wanted to move. I’d land as gently on my knees as possible, then bend forward and lean my elbows back on the cushions and slowly lift my heavy, lower half up, straighten my arms and stand.  

My slippers were loose as I shuffled, either to the front door to look for packages or, to the kitchen to find something appetizing, which wasn’t that easy any longer. The food tasted like the packaging it arrived in. Frozen or microwave? It didn’t matter. I wasn’t sure why Pipsqueak and I had gained so much weight. In fact, it was hard to remember when we didn’t look this way….or live this way. 

Really though, I didn’t care, anymore, how long it had been. The days shuffled themselves like cards that were never dealt. Empty actions, spinning wheels, no light at the end of the tunnel going nowhere. 

Some mornings I woke up and it was already noon. It was tempting to throw away my watch, but the phone and TV always showed the same, inescapable time ticking away. I was tempted to throw my phone into the street sometimes so the delivery vans would crush it, but having it at hand made ordering things so much easier than it would be to traipse all the way to my desktop computer in the back bedroom. 

Today, though, this dingy morning light was bothering me for some reason. I couldn’t register any significant change in the day, except for that one thing, and curious resistance made me want to stay in bed regardless of the coming episodes on TV. Nothing was really different, I told myself, except the muted and ugly glow that blazed weakly through the curtain as the day grew longer. 

The toilet was calling my name, but I didn’t think I could bear to walk through that strange light. Even so, it had to be done, and I rolled to my side and slid my knees off the bed to the floor, keeping my head tucked undercover. I intended to huddle under the thick comforter and creep to the bathroom on my hands and knees in order to avoid encountering the brownish glare that was consuming my room. My breathing was too shallow and, before I reached the bathroom door, I fainted.  

When I woke up, it was dark and I had been dreaming again. A sandy coating covered my face and I felt it in my eyes and ears and in my hair, too. It was everywhere, in fact. My blanket was tossed aside and I could feel the sand undulating over the carpet as I lay there.  

I heard a new sound and smelled a fresh smell. Pipsqueak was alternately dancing in circles and licking my face. I rolled over laughing and easily stood up. The late moon shone white through the filmy green curtains, wafting slightly in a humid breeze from the open windows. The sand was warm in my toes as I walked forward and watched the moon changing in shades from green to white.  

When the sun rose over a beach full of naked bathers, I saw their buttocks brown under the perfect Riviera sky. I could hear the room service carts moving up and down the hallways of the hotel and French accents that drifted through the doorway. My stomach growled and I called down for my morning cafe au lait and croissant. 

The yellow polka dot bikini I’d brought with me was still packed in my suitcase. Pipsqueak had a matching sun bonnet and we’d stroll the promenade as soon as I’d brushed my teeth. Room service knocked and I opened the door.

No cafe au lait appeared; a dingy brown lightbulb hung overhead in my hallway. Dust overwhelmed me and I fell. Pipsqueak hid under the bed, paws over her eyes. I crawled back and slid under the covers, hoping to breathe better air. My throat was parched and I lay there, dazed. Wishing to dream again, I fell asleep.  

When I woke, there was salt drying in the creases of my closed eyes. Even so, through them, I could detect a dirty brown haze absorbing all the light in my room.