Lyle Rexer

 

This bed: I remember how my grandparents’ bedroom seemed to conceal something.  The door was closed; you never went in.  When the door stood open by accident the bed was always made, smooth and immaculate.  Large but somehow not large enough. That seemed wrong to think about.  Things were folded, tucked away.  Nothing had happened during the night, and the daylight entering from a side window, seemed to sanctify a kind of order.  But the whiteness of the spread – I couldn’t take my eyes off it.  It seemed to rise like a mountain and spread out like a desert. What if you did lie down there, fall into that whiteness?  Would you feel someone next to you, someone impossibly old?  If they did touch you, would the room suddenly darken?  Would you ever be able to get up again?  Would you be dead?  As a child, I had fevers.  I often lay in a white bed dreaming I could fly.