Multi-tasking as the headboard of my bed, there is a queer thing that can be accounted for by either bad design choices or simple stupidity.
It is a cupboard, erected from the floor. There is then another cupboard hanging right above it, moulded to the wall, creating a little space between them that seemed comfortable.
Upon first glance, it looked cute. Safe. Cozy.
However, after days and nights of it resting by my side, my breaths skirting gently past the wooden surface, I had a niggling observation. Sometimes, it seemed as if the top one was getting ever closer to the bottom, as if the two cupboards were slowly, steadily inching toward each other inscrutably. Sometimes I’d swear that the cupboard was shifting closer, threatening to crush my makeshift table, but sometimes it would move away.
I considered shifting the things I’d placed upon the bottom cupboard away, but this space was conveniently in the center of the room, and my suspicion seemed silly, childish almost. I imagined having to explain why I’d moved my things away, could already feel the incredulous looks my loved ones would level at me. How paranoid, to say that it would fall.
So when it did, everyone else was surprised.
It had come down suddenly, violently, crushing my phone, my spectacles, my lotion and topical ointments, amongst other things. The people who saw all ran to me, letting their hands graze my back, whispering soothing words.
“It’s okay, we’ll start anew.”
“We will buy you more things.”
“Don’t cry. This wasn’t anyone’s fault. No one could have known this would happen.”
But they didn’t understand, and that knowledge just made me more upset as regret stang my cheeks bitterly.
I had known. I had known.
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