sweety
01-30-2011, 07:29 AM
Not long more and she will come in.
"Are you not up yet..", she will say.
''As you can see, I'm not'', will be my answer.
''Here's a cup of tea''.
I pretend to nod off.
''Wake up you!''
Then she leaves me to study the four walls. I’ve become good at it. My bed stands in the centre of the small bedroom.
The wallpaper, once a meadow of wild daises, is withered and old now. Air bubbles trapped between the layers moving the once smooth paper to tears.
Sometimes I can see expressions behind its opaque composition, illuminating beautiful shapes that nature never intended, but then the apparition fades.
One roll of paper-thin misery slides down its slippery surface and rolls to my bed.
An invitation to what exists in our world, you might think. I refuse to set foot on it.
The uncultivated rat. I can never catch. It torments me, as do my deep and meaningless nightmares. They are as abstract as the matter that holds the peeling wallpaper together.
A window high on the wall.
One day I stood, with the help of my cane and parted the black velvet curtain. Now my position in time is corrupt.
Once I nearly had the rat.
My slipper missing it by a whisker.
''Your potential as a mental creator is only limited by your imagination", she said.
"What does she mean?"
Breakfast.
Two words will pass her lips as she puts the tray on my lap:
''Eat muck.''
Then she throws the daily newspaper at me . I asked her once why the papers all have the same year, but even more disturbing was the date on today’s paper.
1965.... That can't be right. All previous issues were dated 1960. I must question her.
Breakfast: a slice of dry bread and rats droppings. I never touch the droppings.
The breakfast finished, she collects the tray and rebukes me:
''Eat your droppings, slob.''
I ignore her.
A second roll unravels itself on the opposite wall. Again I refuse the temptation to tread it.
She helps me out of bed. I must crawl the length and breadth of the small bedroom before she will allow me access to my wheelchair.
I avoid the slippery wallpaper.
At this stage the bed is not made. She leaves, closing the door behind her.
After a time she knocks.
I say: ''come in.''
The door opens, she enters.
The rat, held in her tired old hands, is thrown onto the bed. Looking at me with disdain she removes her blouse and brassiere.
Then she removes the rest of her clothes.
The rat eats the fallen crumbs.
Picking him up she places him on the floor. I keep an eye on him.
She tries to distract me.
''You are an awkward sleeper, why don’t you lie still, pig!''
The poetry of a cruel woman. The bed is made in quick time. She exits, her clothes go with her. The rat stays behind.
I do my best to kill him.
I throw my slipper, it misses. He is wise, we have played this deadly game many times before.
Ducking under the bed he thinks he is safe. But I fall from my wheelchair and using my cane, I attack him. He scurries up the wall.
The wallpaper is falling at an alarming rate.
I am afraid to move.
A hungry feeling was on me when she opened the door.
The walls were on the floor, the wallpaper unable to hold them back.
She places the tray on her side of the door. Refusing to enter.
I place my legs on the floor and walk to the door, avoiding the paper-thin misery.
The tray is missing, I step forward and tragically fall.
The rat crawls from my mouth.
"Are you not up yet..", she will say.
''As you can see, I'm not'', will be my answer.
''Here's a cup of tea''.
I pretend to nod off.
''Wake up you!''
Then she leaves me to study the four walls. I’ve become good at it. My bed stands in the centre of the small bedroom.
The wallpaper, once a meadow of wild daises, is withered and old now. Air bubbles trapped between the layers moving the once smooth paper to tears.
Sometimes I can see expressions behind its opaque composition, illuminating beautiful shapes that nature never intended, but then the apparition fades.
One roll of paper-thin misery slides down its slippery surface and rolls to my bed.
An invitation to what exists in our world, you might think. I refuse to set foot on it.
The uncultivated rat. I can never catch. It torments me, as do my deep and meaningless nightmares. They are as abstract as the matter that holds the peeling wallpaper together.
A window high on the wall.
One day I stood, with the help of my cane and parted the black velvet curtain. Now my position in time is corrupt.
Once I nearly had the rat.
My slipper missing it by a whisker.
''Your potential as a mental creator is only limited by your imagination", she said.
"What does she mean?"
Breakfast.
Two words will pass her lips as she puts the tray on my lap:
''Eat muck.''
Then she throws the daily newspaper at me . I asked her once why the papers all have the same year, but even more disturbing was the date on today’s paper.
1965.... That can't be right. All previous issues were dated 1960. I must question her.
Breakfast: a slice of dry bread and rats droppings. I never touch the droppings.
The breakfast finished, she collects the tray and rebukes me:
''Eat your droppings, slob.''
I ignore her.
A second roll unravels itself on the opposite wall. Again I refuse the temptation to tread it.
She helps me out of bed. I must crawl the length and breadth of the small bedroom before she will allow me access to my wheelchair.
I avoid the slippery wallpaper.
At this stage the bed is not made. She leaves, closing the door behind her.
After a time she knocks.
I say: ''come in.''
The door opens, she enters.
The rat, held in her tired old hands, is thrown onto the bed. Looking at me with disdain she removes her blouse and brassiere.
Then she removes the rest of her clothes.
The rat eats the fallen crumbs.
Picking him up she places him on the floor. I keep an eye on him.
She tries to distract me.
''You are an awkward sleeper, why don’t you lie still, pig!''
The poetry of a cruel woman. The bed is made in quick time. She exits, her clothes go with her. The rat stays behind.
I do my best to kill him.
I throw my slipper, it misses. He is wise, we have played this deadly game many times before.
Ducking under the bed he thinks he is safe. But I fall from my wheelchair and using my cane, I attack him. He scurries up the wall.
The wallpaper is falling at an alarming rate.
I am afraid to move.
A hungry feeling was on me when she opened the door.
The walls were on the floor, the wallpaper unable to hold them back.
She places the tray on her side of the door. Refusing to enter.
I place my legs on the floor and walk to the door, avoiding the paper-thin misery.
The tray is missing, I step forward and tragically fall.
The rat crawls from my mouth.