Postcard Story VI: The Small World

Inside, the light filters grey through the curtain and your face is mysterious, your eyes still tightly closed – no, clenched – as if you might not know me, as if I fell asleep with a stranger. I wonder, what are you dreaming?

The warmth of you and me in this bed is a small world of its own. I move my head to the plain of your stomach. You extend to the covers and disappear. The limit of the bed is the horizon, the limit of this world.

… A few more minutes of rest. That won’t hurt anyone.

I successfully move all the way from the bed to the window without waking you. I draw the curtain. Outside, the grey sky is sealed on tight like a pot lid. At this moment, you flinch and wake up.

“Come back to bed.”

“It’s already seven.”

“Come back to bed.”

“I’ve got to leave in thirty minutes.”

“Come back to bed.”

I return to the small world that we make – with its own rules, weather, centre of gravity, history and geography. Night has eclipsed us from observers for twelve timeless hours, but now we must go out again.

“Don’t go to work today,” you say. “Pretend you are sick.”

Yes, I say. Yes, my world. Why betray you for another?