No Sheets

No Sheets

He lies atop a long-used but not-dirty mattress, only one pillow supporting his large head. He doesn't care for the maintenance of clean sheets. A thin comforter blankets the space between him and the dark, empty air. Colored specks which come from the power boxes of several useless gadgets break the ink inside his bedroom like a small and scattered swarm of undead, motionless fireflies; the TV, the cable box, the entertainment console, the high-tech bedside lamp which comes with its own phone charging port, these things peer at him with small, red, unblinking eyes. Only the murmur of the fan overhead can be heard, whispering, heartbreakingly indifferent and invisible. He tries vainly to find the peace to sleep.
Suddenly, footsteps from the hallway. The door on the east side of his cramped and abysmal bedroom creaks open, and crass, offensive light is cast across the mess he lay amongst: discarded, dingy clothes have been flung, dead and disgraced, around a vacant basket; the floor shields its neglected surface with a layer of dust, crumbs, crinkly plastic junk food wrappers, and the crumpled receipts of those very same purchases; a single bookshelf struggles to hold itself up, but instead of accomplishments and finished readings, it carries the weight of meaningless and miscellaneous things such as decades-old participation trophies, unopened motivational bestsellers, and random scraps of trash. All of this is forced to be seen when the door swings inward and a figure strolls in on its way to the opposite side of the room, towards another door on the west wall. The decaying house in which he now churns over, onto his back in hopes of avoiding having to actually see his condition, was built almost a century earlier, so his bedroom doesn't retain the luxury of privacy. Instead, its design connects the adjacent hallway to the master bedroom. That is where the figure now proceeds, through the western door and into another, cleaner domain. The harsh light from the ajar portals remains standing to bathe his bedroom in bare, cold scrutiny.
"Ma!" a hoarse and unfriendly voice groans from beneath the pathetic blanket. "MAHM! Shut tha DOOR!" His protests go unanswered, words slung like stones against a rock, full of anger and unhappiness but striking no note on an ear that has heard them too often to note. And so he stays prone on his soft block, and a boiling begins within him. Outrage from not getting what he wants sludges with his lethargic nature and stews together in that stone cauldron of a heart made hard by his insecurity and constant refusals to change things until the hot, bitter slop spills out of his eyes and onto the awful floor and all over the disgusting and pathetic excuses around his lonely room. Unwillingly enlightened by a vile outside judgement, this thing weeps. He weeps for men who choose to live no nobler than pigs; he weeps for those who abuse themselves and their hygienes with the intent to not care; and most painfully of all, he weeps for the quivering wreck of a man he has become, crying in a filthy room as lightless and unkempt and unwelcoming as the soul it has fostered.
Footsteps again. He hurries to hide his tears, burrowing down beneath the comforter just as frightened runts squirm against their mothers' breast. The figure comes back through, seemingly finished with the task on the other side of the western door. It never looks at the bed. On its way out of the east exit, a hoarse and unfriendly voice grumbles, "Close the goddamned door this time."
Darkness collapses around darkness, and the sound of a barrier slamming shut silences the last half of his command.
Whimpering can be heard muffled between the pillow and the comforter, but there is nothing that cares enough to bother it.