Our bedroom's a mess! That's all I can think about. I should be thinking about this meeting, supply and demand, or some shit. But our room is a mess, a huge one. This meeting is going right along without me. I'm stuck inside my head. All I can think about is our bedroom back at the house.
There's a nightstand by my side of the bed. It's old, not actually a night stand but that's what I like to use it as. I got it from my great Aunt Lily when I turned eight. She wanted me to put my doll things in it. Soon after, she died and I missed her dearly, so I always kept it near.
The paint on the thing is an awful shade of blue that has been chipped and scratched over the years. I'd like to strip it to find the wood, but
then I'd lose the "Aunt Lily-ness" of it. She always did love ugly things.
Atop the stand sits a lamp, the phone and the alarm clock, on my side of the bed, so he can't hit "snooze." There's also the latest book I'm
reading and nothing much else that is special. In the drawer is a notebook full of dreams. I've always written down the ones that made me wake up scared, or made me think for the rest of the day.
Then, there are the odds and ends: change, extra tampons, condoms, notes I've written to myself with witty phrases on them that I've forgotten about, the little blue phone book that has been out of commission for two years now. Stuff like that.
The bed is a queen, we went shopping for it a year ago. It was a fun shopping trip.
The bed sheets are pale pink, matching the off-white walls, with a pink and green border. A quilt his mother made for us tops it all off, in pale green and white.
The ceiling in our room has those cheap florescent stars on it, in different spirals and configurations. He told me it was childish to put
them up, but when I was done he said it looked good. It was like sleeping under the stars and trying to find the constellations.
The sex was fun that night.
The TV sits against the wall across from the bed. There are drawers on the stand where it sits. He keeps some of his clothes in them. One of the drawers contains the pictures that we've taken in our time together.
The dresser is in between the door to the bathroom and the door to the hallway. My clothes are in most of the drawers, but a few of his are
there as well.
Or, anyways, that's what the room is supposed to look like. God, I can't concentrate on this meeting! That room is a mess right now!
It's completely upside down.
If I remember correctly, the change is all over the room. I seem to remember hearing it clatter against the window on the other side of the room. The lamp is broken, I'm sure, the light went out when it hit the door, not that I was in much of a mood to look to see what was wrong with it at the time.
The alarm clock is under the bed, still plugged in. I know this much because I heard it going off this morning, muffled from under the bed. The sheets and quilt still match the walls, but they got ripped off the bed and thrown against the TV. The drawer with the pictures in it was hurled across the room. The pictures are everywhere. It left a dent and a scratch in the wall.
During a quiet moment in the fight, a star fell from the ceiling and landed on the bed. I almost laughed, but the anger over took me, and I kept an angry face.
It was awful, and it's all I can think of now. Thank God the meeting over now and I can end this workday. I need to go home and clean.
It'll all be very easy to clean up. I'll just make the bed, pick up the lamp and put the drawers back into place. Not much left to do after that but pick up the odds and ends and put them back in Aunt Lily's stand.
I'll have to put the alarm clock back and put that star back up. Piece of cake.
I just don't know what to do about the bathroom.
"You bitch. Don't you ever talk about her in that way!"
"Why the hell not? She's not your wife. I am. You shouldn't be defending her to me. I'm the one you should be defending."
"Sometimes I wish that she were my wife."
"Sometimes I wish she were too. And sometimes I wish you were out of my life forever..."
I'm standing looking at the mess in this room. It's just the way I remembered it. What?!?! Like it would be any different? Like he could clean it up.
The bathroom is starting to bother me, but I'll hold off on the big job, until later.
So I clean, and clean... drawers, change, ictures, bed, star. It's 6:48.
The bathroom.
I remember running in there and grabbing the scissors that had been lying on the counter. I'd been trimming my hair earlier in the day and forgot to put them away. After I grabbed them, everything is a blur.
All I know is, the bathroom will be the hardest to clean.
He's lying there, dead. I can't remember doing it. But I must have done it. He couldn't have done this to himself. Only a seriously crazy person
would stab themselves to death with a pair of scissors in the middle of a fight.
What a mess. How am I gonna get the blood off the walls?
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Reviewed by R Roland
5/29/2002
Maybe he was running with those scissors...I've heard that might be dangerous. Thanks for the cool story.
Reviewed by Eric Franke
3/18/2002
Interesting story, Sara, and a surprising ending. Good read!
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