I've known Barney for over 15 years now. We met because we both worked at the Renaissance Festival when I was like 15 & he was 14. At some point over the last decade and a half, I discovered that he was a pretty good writer. When we started talking about him doing Disposable Day, I suggested that instead of just writing an elongated caption for all of his pictures, that he might instead write a short piece of fiction. This is what he came up with:
He hates this part. Every time he hates this part.
His
girlfriend rolls away from him, and pulls even more of his little
precious warmth away with her. The lingering chill in the room,
drafting around like an anxious toddler, took this opportunity to lick
his neck under his ear, down his shoulder blade, under his arm. It's
uncomfortable, but at least it's familiar. There and then, he sleepily
arrives at the conclusion that this part of the morning is always this
way, the voyage from the warm luscious beaches of slumber over to the
cold light of day full of ornery reluctance. Almost always anyway.
He
doesn't move, but he waits for the cold to increase, to spill deeper
into his scrappy pile of blankets. Eventually, he's grateful. The cold
makes him focus and he remembers his other senses. He hears the
metronome drip of the gutter outside his bedroom window. He hears the
rain wrapped around the house of course, but he also hears the louder
spatter of the fat drops knocked off the trees out front.
Wind.
This means it will rain all day. He doesn't know why he believes this to be true- but for some reason he does.
He
knows it's morning, but he also knows it's still dark outside, even
though his eyes are still closed. Maybe for the same reason he believes
the wind in the front yard means rain all day, he also believes that
the sound of rain is different in the dark.
He becomes aware of
his breath, and with it takes in the drugstore smell of shampoo from the
pillows. They'd gone to bed with wet hair. They'd both worn big wooly
beanies to sleep, but they'd come off in the night. A darker note of
sweat drifts up from under the blanket.
At this point he hears
the knock. The knock comes from the front porch, a solid wooden knuckle
thrown on the threshold. The front door is directly outside his
bedroom. Had he been so inclined, he could have simply stuck his head
out his windows to seek out the knuckles' hand -but this would
necessitate getting out of bed- which at this point was frankly just not
an option.
Also, it was dark. He knew this to be absolutely
true. He also knew that the front porch light, the light in the foyer,
and even his own bedside lamp had bad burnt no bulbs in them. They had
gone all gone out this week, one at a time, and he hadn't gotten around
to getting more light bulbs yet. And of course his contacts, even his
glasses, were in the adjacent bathroom.
Knock.
OK, what
is that? He hears it again. He listens for footsteps, he knows them
all by name. The redwood porch is nothing but a giant name tag,
everybody's entrance to his house reads "Hello, My name Is..." There
have been no footsteps since his girlfriend rolled over, and as sure as
the thick old dark of the yard, and sure as the promise of the day's
rain, he knows there is no person standing on his porch, yet there have
been two knocks to the wall just to the right of the front door, at
person height.
It is going to rain all day. It is very dark. It
is very stupid early in the morning. And there is an unknown knocking
on the wall.
This is the part he hates. Right here. The
conclusion. The sum total. Every morning he can account for every penny
from the change of sleep to wake. Every single dime of good sense he
has knows where it comes from. But for some reason, he has no idea what
appears to be dreadfully throwing coins at his front door.
Knock.
Knock.
What the fuck is that?
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