Comfy Cosy

Now that another hellish night shift was finished she deserved to sleep, if anyone did.  Her efforts were done by dawn and exhaustion seeped in, even if the unfamiliar surroundings made her too cautious to attempt rest immediately.  The neighbourhood she ended up in was seedy and permeated with a fear that could be felt, and her awareness of it mingled with her own tiredness.  But after a weary search she found somewhere in the shadows that seemed safe from disturbance, though even exhaustion could not fool her into calling it either comfy or cosy.  The miserly space made her contort her body before she found a tolerably relaxed position, and the filthy bedding was too small to swathe her body.   There were also rituals to go through before she could properly unwind.  Others might have been disturbed by the first grumbling sound of traffic nearby, but she was used to much worse noise.  Eventually pleasant tiredness drained all resistance from her body, made the extensions to her torso go limp, and signalled readiness to devolve into oblivion.

   She wondered about soft, pedantic things with the last strands of objective thought.  Never did she imagine dark thoughts; her nightly occupation was so traumatic that it left no space for nightmares.  Her mind only played upon wisps of fine cirrus cloud, soft reflections and mare’s tails.  When her thoughts died she entered her usual pre-dream visualization of flying, though it was unusual for her not to recognise the mountainous terrain that she soared above.  There were disconcerting gains and losses in height which made her feel bewitched and confused.  After travelling over blue mountains she traversed stark green seas, silver rivers, tomb still towns.  Nothing moved in that world except for her own silently flapping wings.  Such an unaccomplished vision, she chided herself.

    Just before the true dreaming commenced, a flurry of faces intruded into her head.  Some of them were angry, others perplexed and l distressed.  They all floated by in a blurred cavalcade.  Although she did not recognise anyone in the sad parade, they seemed to clamour for her attention and demand answers.  But she could only blink mildly back at them, devoid of any abiding curiosity.  She had seen a succession of such faces, night after night, and knew she would never divine who they were and what exactly they required her to do in recompense for their fury.  The people were not here with her, merely pictures, and tonight they faded into nothingness as they always did. 

   She turned over in bed, secure at last in the warmth of her cocoon.  Her arms spread out and transformed into thin things that were no longer limbs.  Beyond this strange membrane and flesh there was a suggestion of liquid, and then an outer layer, wrapped so tightly around her that she could barely wriggle.  Panicking for a few seconds made the constriction worse.  Then she realised it was a childish struggle.  She surrendered to sleep and waited, waited.  Now she was truly comfy cosy.

   Three men stumbled across her secret bed in the alleyway among the trash and detritus.  The worst piece of rubbish was the skinned and still warm corpse of a man, lying beside her, so close it could have been her lover.  In fact they were closer than that, because she was wrapped in his flayed skin, which now covered every single inch of her disgusting form in a semi opaque membrane.  The drunks were too mesmerised and terrified to run away.  They had a bottle with them which they rapidly passed from hand to hand and back again.  But the rot gut was not strong enough to wash away this sight.  Something in the cocoon convulsed, an obscene creature threatening to become something even more cursed.  One of the men wet himself, but they could still not tear themselves away.

  ‘Damned dragon bitch,’ said one of the drunks, and sniggered as he cursed.  ‘I god damn hates them.’

   Though she was changing in her sleep, becoming something more beautifully evolved, she did not stir.

    ‘See here,’ one of the ragged men said.

    He poured some liquid over the sleeping creature.  The other started to protest and howl, then they realised that he was not wasting precious drink, but only lighter fluid.  He threw a lit tissue onto the sodden mass and they all chuckled as the living dead bonfire erupted.  There was a heartening, abrupt conflagration.  The unwise men stood around it a long time, feeling happy that they had found something unique, that no one would even believe if they told them.  It didn’t matter anyway:  by this time next week their addled brains would have washed away the incident.  But for now it was splendid.  They stood around and cursed and warmed their hands. Comfy cosy.