bed sheets

This year, I’m going to change my own bedsheets.

Waking up in the morning is easy enough. I open my eyes, shrug the crick out of my shoulders, and wait silently in bed until my blinds darken enough for the night light in my room to flicker on. It’s a bit embarrassing to still be using a night light at eighteen years old; the last person to mention that to me was my mom. I haven’t seen her in a year–which explains why my bedsheets are so dirty. She’ll laugh if it’s not clean by the time she gets back home for dinner.

I guess I should take out the dirty laundry, then.

The aged wooden floor creaks precariously as I slowly pad my way through the house to the kitchen. There’s an anthill in the sink that’s been there since last summer; I softly greet the wiggling mound of insects and edge around their steady line to the pantry. The doorknob to the small storeroom is coated in rust, bits of copper plating flaking onto my hand as I turn the handle, and a plume of dust greets me as the door swings open. Coughs instinctively rip through my chest and I harshly bat a hand through the air, reaching with the other for the light switch on the far wall.

A warm yellow light flickers on. Through the dust, my eyes settle on the rows of merchandise neatly arranged on the shelves before me: dresses. A stunning rainbow array, albeit slightly faded, ranging from youthful summer maxis to elegantly effortless pinafores and beyond. I already know what I’m looking for, though; a bit of rummaging around the top shelves reveals a still-stunning bright blue bardot dress. I remember my mom mentioning something about wearing it to her senior prom, but the specifics are lost on me. An experimental shake sends a volley of ants spraying into the air–the dress has gained their approval. Right then and there in the pantry, I strip down to my boxers and shrug on the dress. It’s a bit of an awkward fit, the waist pinching into my sides and the skirt scraping high against my calves, but the warm feeling that washes over me entirely overshadows the faults.

It’s perfect–or maybe that warm feeling is just from the ants.

A giggle slips from my mouth as I whirl around in a dramatic arc, my dress spinning in an obnoxious circle in turn. Rifling through the kitchen cupboards, I thumb past the shoes spinning by their laces on coat hangers. My hands settle over a pair of worn denim combat boots–a gift from my mom, from a random yacht party years ago–and I instinctively snatch the shoes from the hanger, bearing my weight against the doorframe as I toe them on. They’re a bit too big and something soft and small briefly wriggles against my right foot before stilling. I hope Henry got a good day of rest. The ants stream beside me like a river as I stomp my way back over the bathroom for a final lookover.

I grab the countertop so hard that I feel the marble splinter underneath my fingers. A wide smile spreads across my face, toothless gaps visible in the bathroom mirror’s reflection. The hem of my dress is frayed and rotted and the ensemble almost reeks worse than my bedsheets, but I cherish this outfit all the same. I wonder what my mother looked like in it.

It’s time to go to the laundromat.

Slipping back into my room, I strip the sheets from my bed. They’re molded and practically falling apart in my hands; I clutch them against my chest like they’re made of gold. There’s a mountain of other dirty laundry for me to attend to, but I don’t bother with them. With sheets in tow, I stroll my way back through the kitchen and kick open the front door. Quite literally–the frame crumbles as I step into the threshold. I wander out into the night, walking aimlessly along the sidewalk until I spot a homeless man crouched with his back against a wall. There’s a flicker of orange light washing across his face; he’s sitting by a small fire. I approach the man wordlessly, stopping right in front of his line of vision. He squints up in my direction, pale eyes seeming to stare right through me.

His gaze darts between the sheets in my arms and the small campfire that crackles at the edge of his site and then realization flickers into his eyes. I yelp as he grabs my wrist and yanks me towards the fire. He stops just short of throwing me in. Then, with his slightly smiling face illuminated by the flames, he waits.

With a resigned sigh, I dump the bedsheets into the fire.

The flame gobbles up the bizarre kindling and then hisses before growing to twice its previous size; the man’s smile grows all the same. Before I can even get a word in, he thanks me profusely before whirling around and tipping face-first into the campfire. I watch on with a blank expression as the man lets himself sink into the heat, curling onto his back as flames lick at his pruning skin. A weird sound bubbles up into the air; a laugh, my brain eventually recognizes, and it’s coming from the charring mass of man that lays in front of me. He laughs, and coughs, and laughs some more, all the while roasting in a hellish blaze. His sharp, canine teeth glow like embers in his smiling mouth; beads of spittle hiss against the heat as he chokes on manic laughter. I linger beside the commotion, hastily stamping out the tiny flame that edges onto the hem of my dress.

I wait there for a minute. It starts to rain. The fire only seems to grow under the downpour.

Finally, after ages, the laughing ceases. The man’s giggles slope down to humored gasps before he sobers completely. Then he jerks abruptly and his eyes flicker over to me, almost as if he’d forgotten that I was waiting next to him. In the midst of the still roaring fire, a hand jerks into his coat pocket and I step forward to hold my own hand out as the man turns back towards me. Into my outstretched palm, he pours two gold coins. I curl my fingers around and pull my hand away sharply as the fire suddenly blazes anew. The man mutters his thanks again before stilling completely, letting himself be swallowed under the inferno until he’s lost from view under the flames.

Satisfied, I set out for the bus stop.

It begins to pour in earnest as the bus stop comes into view. Cold rain begins to seep into my shoes, but I can’t bring myself to run without fear of scruffing the boots. Instead, I let myself get drenched as I walk the final few meters. The bus is posted along the sidewalk with its hazard lights on, as if it’s been waiting for a while.

It’s as if it’s waiting for me.

I finally manage to clamber aboard amidst a gust of wind and rain. The bus driver wordlessly fixes me with an owlish look, blocking my path with an outstretched arm. I wait there silently for what seems like ages before it finally hits me: my fare. I unclasp rain-slicked fingers to reveal the two coins impressed into my palm. I’ve barely begun to hold out my hand when the coins are snatched with terrifying agility and then the bus is thrust into motion. I scramble to brace myself, dragging my body into one of the nearest seats before I can fall.

I take a moment to catch my breath while eyeing the only two other passengers; it’s a baby and his mother in the seat across the aisle. The mother doesn’t even look up, eyes lost in the rolling nothingness outside the window, but the baby is fixated on me. I smile kindly towards him, but he never breaks eye contact. Innocent, baby blue eyes slowly cool to a deep navy as he stares back, as if he’s slowly figuring something out as he stares. His mother remains completely unfazed, her tired gaze lost in the view through the window. In my peripheral, I see the bus driver’s eyes flicker up in the rearview mirror before returning to the road.

My smile drops. The rest of the bus ride is notably quiet.

Some time later, the bus screeches to a halt; I, at this moment, decide that this is my stop. The woman sighs softly at the pause in movement. The baby’s head turns slightly as he follows my movements. Though the bus has stilled, the bus driver’s eyes are fixed on the road. There’s something hanging in the air, but no one decides to mention it. I get up wordlessly and mutter a thank you before stomping down the steps at the front. The sliding door snaps shut behind me, the bus taking off down the road towards the toll bridge.

I absentmindedly wave at the retreating tail lights of the vehicle before turning in the opposite direction and continuing the final stretch towards the laundromat. After a minute or two, I faintly hear the sound of car horns and a considerably large splash some distance behind me. Something in the back of my head tells me it’s better not to question it. I follow my own advice and keep walking. I’m not quite sure where I’m going, but it just feels like the right direction. A few more steps and the rain picks up. This time, I take my chances running and sprint down the sidewalk towards the only lit-up building on the block. When I manage to slosh inside from the rain, the scent of fabric softener hits me like a truck.

I’ve made it to the laundromat.

There’s a desk with a receptionist in the front. She spots me at the door and immediately fixes me with an uncanny smile, bright white and sharp like a shark. There’s something oddly familiar about her; without half of her face turned to look out a window, I can now fully see where the bus baby got his unusual demeanor from. I don’t question her sudden reappearance as the lady leads me through the facility. She holds her arm out as a means of displaying the walls of washing machines before us, but I shake my head no. I just need to get some bedsheets.

The lady pauses for a moment, brow furrowed in thought. Then the smile is back and she’s leading me through a door that’s marked for employees only. It’s cold in here. The room is littered with tables, arranged in oddly perfect rows with crisp white sheets spread out atop them. There’s something off, though; I can sense that there is more to this room. The lady smiles that strange smile and motions towards a random table on the opposite wall. I pull the sheet off the table and stare at what’s underneath.

He’s staring at me.

I’m awake. I’m laying on my bare mattress, the bed stripping of its sheets. There’s soft sunlight trailing through the curtains. None of it makes any sense, but nothing has for a while now. My mom is standing in the corner of the room, quietly stuffing laundry into a hamper. Words begin tumbling out of my mouth before I know any better: “You… You never came back.”

She turns at the sound of my voice and smiles sadly.

I try again, more firmly: “It’s been a year, and I never learned how to change my sheets.”

Something in the look she gives me tells me that I never really woke up, either.