Bedtime: a short story

Bedtime

My pants fell to the floor, and I slid into bed. The covers were getting cold just like the beginning of last winter, and my pillow had traveled over to other side where she used to be. It was stuck underneath a sheet. I yanked it, and looking I noticed the fan unplugged. The little things annoy, like a dripping faucet or a bug bite or a fan unplugged. I turned over, and my boxers rolled up underneath my thigh as I rewound my motion, getting out of bed to go plug it in. The same motion of getting in only reversed. Like me now, the same height of passion only reversed. The outlet lay behind a leather chair, just out of arms reach, on the empty side where she used to be, like all things, just out of arms reach. They were unbunched now, and I walked slowly around the bed, lowering my gate till I began a crawl like in those evolution pictures where ameba changes into man, only reversed. Crawling to reach the outlet. The night was silent, and so were my words. Like all words, they crawled. Like me, my words crawled.

Keep still, I said; don’t talk. Keep your eyes open. Wait. Wait. Keep your eyes open. Her wide eyes took in the world. Her wide eyes watched the world. I crawled like my words toward the outlet. The carpet curved around my knees, my hands leaving tracks like deer tracks. Silence is a sound the second you say it. And it was silent when she went limp, and I say it, and she is still limp, and it is silent now and I say it. Just therapy. Just words. Unmeaning doesn’t mean unmeaning. It can’t; I can’t. I do not have the luxury of bricks or birds. Because I can see the stars fall from her eyes. I watched Orion tumble from his perch; I watched the big dipper droop and fall. She shouldn’t have turned the wheel. The headlights cracked and windshield and my ribs. She shouldn’t have turned the wheel.

I had changed the thermostat ten minutes ago, and finally heard the heater vibrating to life through the walls. The outlet was far away and I stabbed at it. The fan was already switched to on, pointing in the wrong direction. I knew because I could feel the air toward me on the floor and I remembered anew the white noise and the unmeaning. It blew fresh against my face, like the feel of her breathing while she kissed only not. She breathed heavily and with a pitch in her voice. The fan too has a pitch, only not. I pushed myself off the carpet, smelling her leftovers on the sheets. She’s not breathing, he said, and I mumbled words I do not remember. I do not remember what I said, and I can’t hear her sleeping, even though she’s sleeping. The fan and the white noise, and I call it silence, not her breathing, and I call it the unmeaning and the hum of the fan, as if that’s not a meaning. And I, bending over, retrograde, smelled her on the sheets again like in the evolution pictures.

I stood up, my shoulders slummed, and scudded back around the bed. The covers were still cold, so I made friction with my hand on the sheet and slipped back in. One should never stick their necks out for giraffes, I joked, and she laughed, her wide eyes and the orange juice everywhere. The waitress got a good tip. The unmeaning of the white noise and her breathing while she kissed. Nighttime breakfast and the waitress poured her more orange juice. She snorted, and could barely say I am cute, so she said it with her eyes, and I saw Orion’s tumble, and the waitress got a good tip. Keep your eyes open. I said. Wait. Wait. Then the fan wasn’t blowing on my face so I turned it toward me, and the covers felt cold again. I pulled them over my head forgetting and not forgetting to turn the lamp off.

Just therapy. Just words. She’s not breathing, he said. The orange juice stained my shirt and the blood stained the orange juice. I heard the ribs crack as he pumped her breast; him touching my breasts and it was ok and it was not ok. Her breasts not breathing. Him touching my breasts. My breast cracking at hers cracking. I said Wait. Wait. all selfish. And when she was limp and the stars were gone I knew my sin. She couldn’t talk, her eyes were afraid, and I knew my sin.

Words. Words. Words. She couldn’t talk and I have nothing to say. As if the story of the thing makes the thing more bearable. As if saying that the story isn’t therapeutic isn’t just a story wanting what’s therapeutic, and us learning another meaning ad infinitum. The banality of words. The banality of the dead. The banality of that goddman deer. The drama banal par excellence. Therapy is Lethe or death or her alive. Not God, not distraction. It is not even therapeutic to say there is no therapy. Just words. And yet we say them and feel the therapy. But we have only dominated with words, words, words. An infusion of meaning into the mundane, as if saying it is mundane isn’t just a substitute meaning. As if saying we don’t need any aid isn’t an attempt at some kind of aid. As if the revolt against the unmeaning isn’t grasping for meaning, and the rejection of hope doesn’t hope for something. We are hope. We are meaning so long as we are human. And it does not matter whether it is true, it does not matter what is true if truth is unmeaning. It is. I am. She was. Calling it languor doesn’t accustom you to the fan.

She used to pull the covers over my head because she knew I sleep like that. But the light still gets through, and even though they were over my head now the light still sneaked through. I remembered the lamp. The little things annoy, like a dripping faucet or a fan unplugged or a lamp still turned on. Me trying to sleep in the darkness, but the light always shining through. I whisked the covers back and stretch to pull the lamp chain. It slipped a bit, so I shifted further over to get a good grip and tugged. It was dark now, and I closed my eyes. They always have patterns, though less so in the light. How can I see colors when there is no light on the back of my eyelids? What am I seeing if not light?