In case you haven’t already met her, Collette possesses some neat-freak tendencies. She
doesn’t have OCD or anything clinical, but she has a simple desire to keep things in order. So
long as she has order, she has control over her life, and she can run a smooth life ship. Take
her sheets, for example. Come hell or high water, Collette makes sure that her bedsheets are
pulled tight to a militaristic degree. She does this first thing in the morning after waking up.
Collette starts seeing someone, and while she makes the bed every day, it’s no longer
in the am. It’s out of routine, and she keeps it up, but it can get to the afternoon on a weekend
before they both leave the bed. The sheets get a couple of stains on them – soy sauce,
ketchup, pesto - but they’ll wash out. Collette’s good at things like that.
The sheets are in a hell of a state and the bed’s creaking. Collette comes home to find
her girlfriend in bed, but she’s got some company. She throws them both out and heaves the
sheets on the dustless floor. They have their sweat on them.
Days pass and the sheets are wrinkled. They haven’t been cleaned yet, she can’t leave
the bed. Salty tears dry on the cotton, and all signs of their having existed disappear as time
goes by.
Everything that can be cleaned has been tossed into the washing machine. The sheets
roll and are engulfed in more water than Collette’s body could ever produce. They fold and
lap in the spinning cylinder in the hopes that they will change. Some stains will never wash
out.
Phantom scents lift off the bedding when Collette tries to sleep for weeks after.
Questions that will go unanswered rush through her mind. How long? How many? Always on
her bed? How had she missed the signs? Were there any signs? But she withdraws from these
lines of enquiry, lets the sea of white take her into the land of sleep.
It’s morning again. Collette gets up, makes the bed. Pulls the corners tight. Smooths
out any possible wrinkles. Another day has come, and one will come after that, and Collette
will continue this cycle of making her bed until it is disrupted once more, but the flat circle of
time will repeat itself countless times. All that remains the same are those sheets being made
each day.
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