Mattress

The distance between the indentations in the mattress is testament to their failed relationship.

Late at night he walks around town. He is avoiding the bed. Since she left him, he has recurring dreams of being foreign.

The brisk breeze invigorates him. Under the clear night sky he throbs with forgotten lycanthropic bravery. He is a teenage boy, with Camus in his pocket and Che on his chest. Back straight, head up, eyes forward. He is a conduit, a channel for his peers’ collective indignation. He plans a book; a manifesto; a treatise. There are things that need to be said. He will say them.

Some time later he is aching from the cold. Echoes of youthful laughter roll towards him, surround him as he hurries down yellow-tinged streets. Malevolent revellers’ sinister eyes lurk in every shadow, all mocking tongues and raised fists. He heads home.

On the sofa, illuminated by the irregular flickering of a dead channel he makes plans. He will quit his job. He will study an art. He will screw a philosophy student with existential problems.

He dozes. He is Mexican, he is Nigerian, he is Malaysian.

And then he is bolt upright and struggling to find a breath. He gazes out of the window for a while, composing himself. Conspiratorial birds chatter under the rapidly failing cover of darkness. He undresses on the way to his bedroom. Naked before his bed, he knows he has something more to do.

He turns the mattress over.

She’s never coming back.