Death's feet

*

Her decline continued. One night Duessa dreamed that her bedroom was a thing falling on her head. It was not a space open for a soul to occupy, not a carved space with an openness. It was like a block of wood. Duessa's pillow was a damp and lumpy heap, it did not give to the head. The light-fixtures were inert, the light itself was nothing but a thing. One stubbed one's toe against the wall and discovered that toe and wall were of a single texture bereft of all life. The light was a thing, the chair was a thing, the air lying loose on the chair was just a thing. The ache in her toe was a dead thing, just like her toe. All the bones were torpid. The skin was a used-up cloth. The face repelled the fingers, the cranium was a dead item and what was inside the cranium, only another thing. Her soul was a thing, not worth thinking about or being inside. And everything about her was just used up. Such was her dream.

She woke with a mixed feeling of relief and dread. But no, the feelings were there but they did not mix. And the dread dominated everything. When she went to the window there was no view otside, neither air nor no air. There wasn't gray, there wasn't blue. There wasn't not-gray either. There wasn't anything. Nor was there nothing.

She placed her dead feet on the matty edge of the rug and slid over to the door but the handle wouldn't turn. It had no grip on anything. The sound of panic in her throat died for lack of a medium to carry it. The room began to fold upon her like a cardboard box. And then she woke up for a second time, lying there for some hours, unable to move. There was no thought to move to that would be different.

*