THE SHEETS
By Inge Moore
Copyright 2011 Inge Moore
Published on Smashwords
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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THE SHEETS
By
Inge Moore
Although it was night, the contents of the room were clear to Celeste. It was a large room, modern, decorated in grey and white. By day, it was their living room, but at night it was converted to bedroom by the pull-out sofa-bed. She lay on that bed now beside her husband.
Above them, suspended from the ceiling, were the sheets. Originally, there were always one hundred. Some were cotton, some flannelette: striped, floral, plain white or pastel. They waved as if there were breezes in the room, fluttered like tiny fingers blown up huge and stripped of their bone, the way you pull tail skins from the vertebrae of rodents. She thought of that now as she watched the sheets. How she'd roll the tail, if it was small enough, between her fingers to loosen the fibers, then just pull the skin away slowly, gently, until the bone was bare.
She understood that well enough. It was easy. It was her work. But the sheets, the sheets she couldn't grasp. How they were actually suspended remained a mystery. All she knew was that it was her job to keep them up.
Yet all around her lay sheets, sheets upon sheets, fifty of them, fully half. They rested on the ground like bats of damp cloud, a testimonial to her carelessness and ineptitude. All evening she has been careful of them, walking gingerly over them as if they could do her some harm. John, for his part, has never noticed them.
John lay in bed beside her now, his breathing shallow and even. At last the silence was natural -- not a recrimination. He seemed to be asleep. She felt positive he was sleeping. Whenever his body touched hers, the sensation was like a cattle prod. Instantly, she'd feel the touched flesh sink down inside herself to some unknown place where if cleansed itself secretly before its return to the surface.
It had always been a relief when John failed to notice the sheets. The onus had been, from the start, on her to keep them up. It was a burden she simply accepted. They fell in response to John's anger, never her own, and in proportion to it.
She watched the sheets that remained safely floating. She'd think about re-hanging the rest in the morning, what she needed now was to block those out, and so she lay motionless, seeking sleep, one half-dream chasing another until sunrise.
John got up early. He strode-about -- left, right, totally disregarding the sheets. Afraid to watch, she shut her eyes tighter, closed her body harder, the muscles locking forces with tendons, bones and ligaments to make her like dead wood, unbending and senseless but bearing the marks of having once been alive.
Her consciousness returned to her slowly, not long after he'd gone, although she couldn't have said exactly when that had been. She hadn't heard the door slam, yet at the same time, fully realized it must have happened. Her body numb, she rose to her feet and picked her way delicately through the clammy cold sheets, then repeated the morning ritual, the civilized function, the cleansing and the nourishing, as if she meant it and as if she truly felt alive.
When she'd stepped smoothly over the last sheet, she hesitated by the door and took a final, retreating look at her sheets, both hanging and fallen. Then she turned the doorknob, pushed out of the room, and was tentatively free.
The crisp wind outside the building blew through to her skin, invading the nakedness beneath her clothing, but it was welcome. It was stripping away scales. The sunshine evaporated the foggy shroud she'd carried out with her. She felt the blood begin to flow. The vessels that had seemed so constricted, widened and swelled, rendering her capable of accepting what life had to offer once more.
Her eyes began to seek things out, hungrily, common things: green trees, crisp, bright houses, little children. Everything pleased her, then sheets on a line -- of course, why not, it was summer. Still, she lowered her eyes until she reached the university.
At work, she made lists: dates, weights, species, varieties and locations. She copied from one list to another, coding and reworking, putting dots on graphs and pinpoints onto maps. It was interesting, absorbing, almost a game. Regretfully, she stopped for lunch -- water and contemplation.
Swallowing the fluid in tiny sips, she forced herself to think about the sheets. She'd calculate how to re-hang them, rehearse the act before the event. It was becoming a science. She wasn't ready yet though, in fact, could barely stand the thought of them. She'd have to wait. She lowered her head onto her desk, her hair falling flowingly over her bare arms and onto the polished wood. In places it matched the grain, flowed with it, was almost exactly the same earthy shade.
At the knock on her door, she straightened, hastily wiping warm tears from stinging cheeks. She turned in the swiveling chair, called out, "Come in."
Relief. It was only Mark.
"How's it going?" he asked, unsmiling. His voice floated in the air somewhere between them, an unworldly monotone that strangely soothed her.
He filled the doorway. His body was solid and strong, his arms covered in black hair down to the backs of his thick coarse hands. Hair rose too, to high on his chest where it was abundantly visible at the base of his throat, almost as if there were some strange wild animal under his clothes and not a man at all. His face was scarred by the ravages of adolescent acne. She hadn't known him then, had heard only his own deprecating accounts of himself at the time. To her, his face was like the rock crags of a summer mountain, his eyes the cool blue of pristine streams.
He dropped into the extra chair beside her and traced a blunt index finger over one of her maps. He always had a reason to come, a reason to sit next to her. Her heart beat erratically against the walls of her chest as she stifled a sob.
He looked up from the papers sharply, his heavy brows drawn together. "Celeste?"
She knew that she could simply sink against him and the world would turn right.
"It's nothing," she said, recovering. "I could use some food."
"Coffee shop?"
"How about outside?"
"Great."
As they stepped into the hall, Celeste saw Ann approaching from its other end. Slick green hip waders hampered her progress.
"Mark," she called, with a smile that narrowed her dark eyes. "I thought I'd catch you here." She nodded to Celeste, the nod bouncing her curled hair, most of which had escaped its pins and played in a dark tangle about her sun-burnt face.
She's brought in the smell of the lake, Celeste thought and she watched, unnoticed as Ann chattered to Mark, one small tanned hand at her waist, the other fluttering. Ann was vibrant, she was zest. And she brought in the smell of the lake -- it meant something. Surely it would affect Mark too.
Celeste's heart squeezed sharply at the thought. Suddenly, she could not bear the thought that Mark's attentions weren't her right, that they might slip away from her at any time, and she felt the first sting of her dependence on his friendship.
She forced her mind onto the conversation, catching just its end.
"You should have seen Larry's face!" Ann's laughter.
"I can imagine," Mark said. "Did you get a decent catch?"
"Yes. Really good."
"Right then. Go take care of it."
"Ah ... what do you mean?"
"Take the muscle tissue to Toxicology," Celeste volunteered.
"You know the drill." Mark waved her away.
Celeste enjoyed Mark's curtness, was amused by it. Ann would get used to it too.
Left in the stillness, the wake of Ann's exuberance, Celeste felt timorous, stepped beside Mark lightly like a deer.
"Ann's good in the field," Mark said, breaking into her thoughts. “She works hard."
"She's a nice girl," Celeste said.
"Too clingy. Not like you. I'd never see you if I didn't come to your room. You'd never come out, a real mole."
"Me? Yuck!" She laughed. Then, "Mark, I really do have to talk to you about something...."
His pace slowed. "Is something wrong?"
"Yes -- no. I'm not sure. Can we discuss it later, after work?"
"Sure. Take your time."
As they left the building she said, "You never smile, ever. You never look happy. You always look sad."
"I'm not unhappy," he said carefully. "I think a lot. That's all." His face stayed immobile. His forehead, so high and broad, with the black hair standing up from it abruptly, reminded her, against her will, of Frankenstein, the monster made parts of dead men.
"Think about what?"