The bed is white

The bed is resting under the fluff of a down comforter. Embroidered with a wispy border, interrupted by the occasional flower. The headboard is deep mahogany the foot board curls into a lip on its end, almost like the sleigh bed in the other room. The pillows are trimmed in tiny lace, with small eyelets around the flowers in the center. It sits peacefully beside a light pine desk, below the long skinny window facing the tree outside. The tree. It soars upwards, ivy crawls slowly up its thick rough trunk. Reaching, stretching for the branches, for the sky. The grass is brown, it flows unbroken into the next lawn, jumps over the driveway and into the next yard. Dead, waiting for winter's rain. Waiting for spring again. All the lawns are the same. Row on row of one floor three bedroom homes. Streets of them, curving round and round, all lead back to the bridge,the entrance, the exit.

The bed sits against the wall, faces the closet. The door hangs ajar. Inside sits a bookshelf, but there are no books. On top sits an arrangement, a myriad. Strange coins that can buy nothing, or are they medals? Five in all, in front of several long, smooth shells. They stand on end, proudly in their greenish brown skin of metal. Where are they from? Why were they kept? There is a box, wooden, carved. Words, initials. What do they mean? A mug as well, a patch in a frame, they bear the same emblem, the same words. A set of guns, rifles, two columns on either side. A round blue box sits on the floor at the side of the bookshelf. The rest is vacant. Simple, empty.

There is a chair beside the pine wood desk. It lies under olive green fabric, cinched around the edges, tucked beneath the cushion. A burgundy blanket, thick and fleecy is thrown over the back of the chair. Someone knudges it with their foot, barely tapping the base as they sit at the tall pine desk. It rocks, slowly. Back and forth, back and forth.

Behind the chair sits a diagram, a large colour poster. Leaning up against the cream coloured wall. A corner dips down, bent over, no support. It is untouched by the rocking of the chair. There are dials, numbers, a handle, switches, all in great detail. Everything sits on a gray piece of metal, curved round back in white where there must be space in real life. Words at the top. U.S. Air Force Cockpit Configuration Trainer. It is a copy of something real. Something dangerous.

The light on the pine desk is clicked on. It is simple, like the rest of the room, the house. It is a cream light shade, a ceramic base. Warm light glows and reaches the corners of the room. Cascading over white bedspread with sweet eyelets, down the footboard, creeps over the carpet and up into the closet. Spilling over the wide pine desk full of papers, landing on the chair and dipping down behind it, glossing over the drawn dials and switches of the poster.

The door is swung shut with a quiet click, breathing over the carpet to where the grayness meets the wooden floor of the hall. The blinds on the long thin window are drawn, no more peering eyes, looking into the house that is the same as all the rest. The computer screen flickers to life, the quiet sound of keys forming words begins. A word, then a comma, a few more letters and then a sentence is made.

A lull in the clicking of keys, music slips from a black speaker, over the desk and fills the room. It is warm, though rain can be heard as it patters on the roof and drips from the gutters. Stars shine outside, hidden by the dark clouds, bringing much needed relief to the brown grass that jumps from home to home. No more sound of planes overhead.

A bell rings in the kitchen. A voice calls softly, sweetly. Warm soup smells drift from the front of house, sneaking in under the closed door. Tempting, convincing. The computer is left to the wills of a screensaver, though the music still hovers in the room.

The light is on, forgotten, casting a warm hue all about the room. The chair has ceased to rock, the poster is dipping closer and closer to the floor. The desk cools where arms once leaned against it. The book case in the closet waits for an admirer. Someone who will understand the words, the shells, the medals. Everything is peaceful, waiting for its need. The pillows are soft and smooth. The bed is white.