Sleeping In

Mark pulled the covers tighter around the dark curls on his head to cut out some of the mid-morning sun. He didn’t want to waste a moment of this long-awaited Saturday by getting out of bed. After all, he hadn’t had one of these for seven days. Even the uncomfortable pressure reminding him about just how many beers he had drank last night wasn’t going to chase him from this warmth and comfort.

He was sliding down that magical chute to real sleep when he felt two hands grip his ankles. “Oh no,” he thought, “Dad.” And then the hands tightened with more strength than he had ever felt before and he was yanked into the darkness he had been seeking only moments before. As the black closed over him he remembered his father had died of a heart attack six months before.

Had Mark’s mom not taken the time to tap on his door, had simply opened it, she would have seen the bulge under the sheets suddenly disappear. It didn’t settle all at once, it started at the head and moved to the foot as though something large had been pulled quickly out the bottom. Instead, all she saw was that Mark wasn’t in his bed which was quite unusual at this time of the morning on Saturday. She hadn’t heard him get up.

She didn’t give it another thought as she stripped the sheets from his bed. She didn’t look too close on purpose so she wouldn’t notice any of the man stains that always embarrassed her. Had she looked closer she may have noticed ten long impressions running the full length of the bed that had not quite faded as the bedding and mattress puffed back out to their normal shapes. She tossed the sheets to the doorway and pulled the pillows from their cases and tossed them on the pile. She hummed to herself as she opened the window to let the Spring air wash out the stale, musky atmosphere. She thought about picking some of the clothes off the floor but heard her dead husband’s advice over the lilt of her nameless humming, “As long as you do it for him, he will never do it for himself.” Despite the fact that he still wasn’t doing it for herself, she honoured the advice, picked up the bedding and headed downstairs to continue working on the laundry. She closed the bedroom door behind her to keep its scent from invading the rest of the house. She was certain she had heard him stumble in late last night. Perhaps it had just been a noisy dream.

Three hours later she carried the neatly folded bedding back up to his room. While it washed and after she had hung it on the line to dry, she kept listening for Mark. He would be hungry and she would fix him some lunch or a late breakfast if that was what he wanted. She told herself she did this to be a good mom but knew deep down she did it because he would leave a mess behind him if he made his own food. It was always less work to make his meals for him than to clean up after him. She would be able to make his bed without having to work around him. She wasn’t certain why she took the time to fold the bedding when she was only going to put it back on his bed but it was something she always did, always had done, as though wrinkles might interfere with a good night sleep.

She made the bed and closed the window then shut the door behind her even though the dark musky aroma was gone. She knew that smell from the many nights she had enjoyed the attentions of her husband but refused to allow her mind to wander those paths where her son was concerned. He was a man and was allowed a man’s privacy. Had she lingered a moment inside his room, maybe contemplating picking the room up a bit, she would have seen the neat bedding stir. A shape pushed up at the foot, on one side and then another shape pushed up on the opposite side.

A bulge appeared in the middle and then a loud sucking of air broke the silence in the room. Flo barely heard this sound as she had made her way to the top of the stairs. She looked briefly along the hallway, toward her son’s room, then raised her hand and fluffed the hair at the back of her neck where an uncomfortable tickle had suddenly appeared. She turned back to the stairs and stepped down them a little quicker than she normally did. In Mark’s room the bulge began moving up the bed. Something was pulling itself out of the bottom of the bed and dragging itself along. It continued to make that sucking sound as thought it had not used its lungs in a long time. The shape continued to crawl up the mattress, pulling the tightly tucked in sheets from between the mattress and box spring. For just a moment it looked like a person swimming under the covers. Then curls peeked out from under the sheets, the pillows falling to each side. A rush of putrid, damp air escaped as Mark’s lungs continued to gasp. When the cool, fresh air his mom had let in struck his face, his eyes popped open. Dirt and twigs fell from his hair and a blood and muck streaked hand escaped from the sheets. Mark pulled his head fully from under the covers as he drew his knees up to his chest, moving his feet far from the bottom of the bed. He closed his eyes and with a sigh, dropped into sleep. As he dozed a fat beetle crawled out of his now white hair and trundled across his pillow.