by Andrew Wilmot
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YESTERDAY IT WAS SAFE. Yesterday it was Grace Kelly and Singing in the Rain. Allan had heard the music and seen the light flickering from beneath the door before entering her room.
Yesterday was a good day.
Today Allan woke at five to eight with what felt like a ten-pound medicine ball balanced precariously on his chest, forcing the air from his lungs. He floundered in the dark for the liquorice whip of cord protruding from his torso and yanked it out, immediately discharging a deep sigh. He then reached over and switched off the alarm on the clock radio glowing green at the corner of the nightstand.
His thoughts were muddled. He wondered which of them — and how many—had plugged into him while he had slept. If he shut his eyes again he’d be able to hear their disparate thoughts, fading but still present. He thought briefly about turning on the light, looking to see who’d moved in the night, whose face was a little fuller, whose colour a little less pallid, but decided against it for fear of waking one or all of them sooner than was necessary.
Their bodies lay scattered between the bed and the door, limbs interlaced like fallen latticework. As Allan’s eyes adjusted to the light slicing thinly through the blinds, he viewed pockets of carpet like miniature demilitarized zones spread throughout the huddle of lightly snoring bodies. He slowly pushed back the covers and swung his legs out over the foot of free space right next to the bed. He charted a path through the still-slumbering bodies and made his way to the door. He gently turned the knob, careful not to brush the outstretched hands on the ground.
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about the author
ANDREW WILMOT is a writer, editor, and artist living in Toronto, ON. He is a graduate of the SFU Master in Publishing program and spends his days writing a lot and painting stupidly large pieces. He currently works as a freelance reviewer, academic editor, and substantive editor with several independent presses and publications. To date his work has been published in Found Press, The Singularity, Glittership, Drive In Tales, and Turn to Ash, and he was the winner of the 2015 Friends of Merril Short Story Contest. His first novel, The Death Scene Artist, will be published by Buckrider Books, an imprint of Wolsak & Wynn, in Fall 2018.
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