THE BED

(short story)

Every day was extremely hard to get out of bed. Waking up wasn't a problem, maybe falling asleep was, but not waking up.

Every day, school or even work was set aside, in order to spend just a few more minutes lying there, inside the warm sheets and blankets, inside that extremely comfortable bed.

The bed was really beautiful; it was an antique that her parents got for her when she was a child. The header was made of thin sticks of iron, curved to give beautiful shapes. At the end of the sticks, always a flower, although some of them looked more like some kind of talisman. And in the middle, a faun; rather chubby looking fellow, nude as it would be in nature, child looking creature. Always the faun would look down, right to the head of whoever is sleeping in the bed, and her grandma always told her that the faun was her guardian angel; taking care of her while she slept.

And as I said before, sleeping in that bed was the best thing in the world, the most comfortable place ever.

Every morning, in her school years, her mom would wake her up for her to go to school. And every morning it was hell to have to go out of bed, especially when it was to go to school. Sometimes even preceded by the most inventive excuses; excuses that her mom wouldn't believe for a second. Her mind was like a Pandora's box, and when needed, the most wonderful stories would come to help.

When she grew older, she moved away, to live by herself, but she took her beautiful bed with her. Every night she would go to bed, with some book, and lay her head on the header, right where the faun is, the faun helping as support.

She always had a notebook on her night stand, and usually would write for hours, the most bizarre stories before actually falling asleep.

Sometimes, even asleep, those incredible stories would enter her thoughts and become dreams, sad maybe nightmares.

When she was a university student, she would take her texts to bed, and read until late all the subjects she was taking. But never ever she could get out of bed early in the morning, and never ever without spending some awake time in her bed. This started to affect her academic work, since she was missing the morning classes all the time. And it became quite a problem for her, but she couldn't figure out what was wrong. She just couldn't get out of bed. Once, she even spent a whole day in bed. She wasn't sick at all, nor depressed, as some people might think, she was just enjoying her bed.

But at some point, all the stories she had on her mind all the time went darker, and scarier. And the sweet dreams she once had started to become all nightmares. She was OK by it though, as she thought it was a great resource for her writing. And for some time, IT WAS OK. But then, all the nightmares started to follow her in her conscious state, awake.

Once, in the middle of the night, she woke up, immerse in cold swept. She couldn't remember what was happening on her dream, but apparently it wasn't nice. When she tried to reach the light switch she noticed she couldn't move. She was paralyzed; and she could feel that there was someone, or something looking at her, from the side of her bed. This lasted a few seconds probably, but it felt like an eternity. She was too scared to close her eyes, she was too scared to even breath. She felt even mentally paralyzed. With great effort she started praying, even when she couldn't even remember her prayers, she did the best she could. After a few minutes it all vanished, that moment, that tension, the atmosphere, everything, and it all went back to normal. She couldn't sleep for the rest of the night though.

All this time spent in bed, little by little grew bigger. What was once just a few minutes were now hours. And as she lived alone, nobody really noticed.

Sometimes she would stay the whole day in bed, only getting out to get some food or go to the bathroom. She would write insanely, or watch things on her computer, this went on for hours!

She had that awful dream from time to time, and the longer she spent in her bed, the more often she would have that dream.

Now the presence by her bed was gaining some form or shape, but it was still a blur. And she noticed once that as she exhaled, the presence would inhale, and when she inhaled the presence would exhale.

Everything was OK when the morning came. And all the crazy thoughts would vanish. She was convinced she was having some sort of hallucinations, and so she sought help.

All kinds of pills sat still on her night table. A glass of water half drank, gathering the thin dust suspended in the night. She tried for a few months with the pills, but everything was getting worse. She told her doctor, and he suggested some more aggressive treatment. She was committed, willingly, as she was now desperate. All this weird thinking was separating her from reality, and it was more than she could take.

She was there, at the clinic, for a whole six months. But all the time she was there, she was rather ok. She did had the occasional night terrors, but not as often, and the hallucinations were going away. When she was discharged, her doctor was convinced she would be ok. But he was terribly mistaken.

On the first week she went back home, back to sleeping in her so missed bed, the night terrors were back, and this time the escalation was tremendous. After one night of the most horrible, paralyzing fear, she called her doctor, who was really surprised with her call. And as she insisted, and sounded extremely exited, she went in for a consultation. She told the doctor what had happened, but as any doctor would think, the assumption was that she was scared of coming back, and so her mind was tricking her. "Many patients have these type of feelings when they go back home, but you shouldn't worry, it will take some time but you will get used to being at home again. But let's do this, I want you to take these before going to bed, it will help you sleep."

She would now sleep much more than needed. And she appeared to be even dead when she slept. Strong medicine the doctor gave her. The rest of the day was normal.

"Come back next week and we'll see how you are adjusting by then ok?"

And with the promise of returning by that time she went home. She was scared, but the doctor had given her the confidence she needed. That was the last time the doctor ever saw her, "next week" never happened. She never went back. She never got out of bed after that one week of heavy sleeping.

The last time she had that terrible nightmare, she managed to open her eyes. The figure by her bed was clear now, it was the faun, who had taken all her life and made it his own. Every night he would watch her, helping her at the beginning. Loving her, enjoying her company every moment, even when she wasn't awake. Every night the faun would guard her dreams, and make the bad ones go away. His love for her was immense, so much that it became envy, jealousy. He started ignoring her dreams, and the bad ones started to kick in. Until one day he discovered that by her nightmares, he could get a piece of her mind or soul for himself. He could make it his own. He grew bitter every time, and evil. He took her life away from her bit by bit, and when she noticed something was wrong, as usual, it was too late.

The last time she opened her eyes, the faun was real, and looking at her as usual, but from a real flesh and blood body. And now there was a grin look on his face. His loving being was forever gone.

The last time she opened her eyes, as she saw the faun, she started to fade. And the figure in the bed was now a little girl, with a sad face, looking to the side of the bed.