bed

My bedroom is perched on the corner facing the bay. Its oblong windows offer what life lacks: a boundless horizon of soothing sounds, pacifying colors (etymon of Pacific?) and salty-sweet sea-smell. When my head is hot with chaos I open the windows and the cold salty mist blankets me with dew: this is my frequent respite from all that is wrong in my city.

Lately, however, there is a strange intruder in these moments of still.

I must begin by describing my room in greater detail. The room is essentially a rectangle, one end dented by a great bay window, leaving a blunt bullet-like footprint of heavy oak floorboards. The bed is placed where it ought, the missing headboard flanking one side-slant pane. This allows my waking to the sleep-caked bay and its infrequent sun, and my sleeping amidst drifting fog and boats' mournful cries. After the bed little room is left; this is filled with the necessary crates and wooden boxes that help to package my life.

On this bed I read, write and sleep. And open the window to suck in the air. It is my nest of tranquillity and homecoming haven. Or it had been for so long. But the other night as I lay, flipping a book page, I heard a non-specific noise; some sort of click. Absorbed in my pages I dismissed it until it became rhythmic. Suspecting my crumbling clock (I cannot spend significant sums on night clocks or alarms, for some deep psychological reason; this leaves me constantly patching and tweaking plastic clockwork in late hours to suppress the inevitable buzzings and whirs of such devices, an activity which usually results in an angry wall-dent and many plastic shards – the next day I replace it with whatever is cheapest) I held its innocent face to my ear. What else could be at fault?

Through concentrating on the repetition of this 'click' I was able to shorten the list of mechanical suspects. In time I knew it was some sort of metallic impact. Careful peering and twisting unveiled the mysterious culprit – when I fell on my bed with my head hanging over, I witnessed a corner of my bedframe move by millimeters and emit the sound. A bend of steel impacted its twin, and emitted the click.

So the bed was in fact clicking, but by what motive force? Finally here I suppressed my laugh. The metronome beneath me, at first a solitary sound, was soon joined by others. A subtle metal creak across the apartment, a heavy breath, a stifled moan. So that was it. Like the alluvial plains my bed magnified shocks; where the buildings would crumble my bedframe would click! And the love-strokes of others entered my nights like pebbles upon glass, or, rather, like rainfall from some heavenly warm front. Either way, I was sated; the problem was solved and we would all laugh over morning coffee.

But the humor ebbed like such humor does, that fueled by an initial lacking, a bitter need. For weeks and weeks this continued. Occasionally on the verge of sleep I heard the noises again. The clicking mesmerized, feeding me with visions unsought. And lying there alone! The expanse of the sea and the horns in the fog wouldn't populate my bed; the women in the books knew nothing of my flesh. But these instances were few and, in time, I grew to ignore them.

Until the day when the avid couplers left town. The room to myself, half awake, my mind intertwining with shadows on the wall. And then the click. But where from? Instantly alert, I leapt up off the bed. And still it continued its demonic tap. I tore off the mattress, turned on all the lights. And as is my custom I retreated, deep into my analytical self, and knelt down to decipher the beast.

Its form is fantastic, designed by a madman. A simple structure, yet so profound in its… abilities. Four steel bars form the frame, locked together with one nut and one bolt at each corner (the choice of just one!), and supported by six feet (not four! not eight!). And to think that all I laid upon at the store was the mattress. The frame was but an afterthought, included in the price. That the frame could implicate the world, this was never discussed – not by the smiling woman, the eager clerk, or the delivery boys (is it strange that the delivery boys did not complete their job, leaving it at the door complaining of steep stairs? is it because they did not want to be implicated?) And so in the end the delicately demonic carcass was mine.

And this, my beautiful bed. Cursed bed!

I recall a fragment of a poem:

Yes: but in truth we manacle ourselves. And in the nights this bondage begs its price. We search for solace and a place of peace and… insulation. But insulation's imperfect and in time… in time…

For brevity I'll tell you this: my room can no longer afford me the necessary pleasure of escape. And so I must lie here, holding my head, listening to the endless clicks from parts of the world that work. At some point I'll drift off, and my hands will relax. But there is no longer the option of a pleasant night's sleep, a cool gaze at the water, or a life-giving nap. You see, I had shopped poorly for my bed. I chose one in haste. It has much too sensitive a frame.