In slumber we earn our dreams. In awareness we pay for them.
She awoke the next morning with a terrible temper after a short sleep. Indeed, it had felt as if it were no more than half a second when she merely closed her eyes: the clock rang loudly and persistently at a quarter to three. The ring of the sound was so high, so repetitive, so wounding, that she nearly seized it and smashed it against the wall. But in a moment's recollection, she thought and pressed on the button with diminished rage, something resembling a timid withdrawal.
A long groan followed, and she sank into the mattress with open eyes. She looked round her room with resentment, remembering her duties for the day in a moment's flash. "Tedious..." she sat up and dragged herself out of the bed, tottered, and proceeded. "Absolutely tedious...and loathsome...and heinous...". Irving cursed everything that lay in her way; the room was so dark as the sun had not peeked above the east and she had not the slightest of intentions to turn on the little lamp atop the nightstand. However, we may note, that as she passed these curses there truly was nothing that lay in her way; her room was tidy and clean, the floor clear of any potential hazards to her heavy feet. The one exception to the tidy space would be her desk, where books and art tools laid about. But she saw in the shadows, and she imagined, as it is in these irritable mornings when even the swarming shadows on the walls were of a great nuisance, blooming into a rupture of fury in her chest. For a moment she longed to cry, forget it all and leap back into her bed to lay away her life in it.
Once her fingers flicked the switch and the lights pierced her weak optics within the bathroom she knew it was too late to go back.
Her movements were languid and strained, slow and automatic throughout the routine. Underneath the shower, she stood frozen as the water flowed over her in streams of thoughts and was suddenly relieved. An absent smile formed on her lips and all at once, she was plunged into a momentary joy; she hummed and began singing gravely:
"How sweet a life was his; how sweet a death!
Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours,
Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer;
Dying, to leave a memory like the breath...
Of summers full of sunshine and of showers,
A grief and gladness in the atmosphere..." *
But once she stepped out of the bathroom and dried off, her motions had become quick and efficient, each with a calculated purpose as she began gathering her clothes.
The large wardrobe was vacant save for the clothes she had planned to wear. She buttoned her white poet blouse hurriedly, tucked it neatly into the rim of her dress pants and tightened the belt round her waist. She arrived in front of the bathroom's mirror and raked the comb through her long hair, anxious to detangle it swiftly, and then drew it back into an elegant coil with an excess tail hanging loose; she pinned two golden earrings on each ear.
Irving went out into the living room that had remained unfurnished and unchanged throughout those two years, and yet the bookshelf was empty along with a few ceramic adornments that used to be there. She walked into the small kitchen and opened the refrigerator, stopped and observed its contents pensively. It too was empty. She smiled ironically and shut the door.
"It's completely left my mind! I have no food!" she cried and stepped back into the living room, this time heading for the door. Taking her red coat and slipping on her heeled boots, she grabbed two suitcases standing beside the doorway, strung a smaller bag across her body and went out of the apartment.
