Mum always stressed the importance of keeping the windows open.
She said sealing yourself in your bedroom created needless risk. That this behaviour allowed moisture from your breath to breed with your sweat, and let the damp reign supreme. That spending all that time in the darkness was the sign of an unhealthy mind.
Her generation never understood how much entertainment exists within four walls. How if you lacked a job, and the concept of travel was an unthinkable horror, then an infinite pool of videos became your duvet honeypot.
So even on the hottest days of the year I kept the blinds down, and the lights off. Thin slits of light made failed attempts to break in around the doorframe, but this was my sole disturbance from the glow of the screen.
Fun is not the right word. Instead the hours powered along under a thrum of visual satisfaction. A constant stream of calm that kept the world elsewhere.
But Mum had been right. Sometimes I mopped the windowsill with an old sock, and gathered enough water to fill a small glass. After a brief adventure to shower or raid the fridge, my cave hit me with a reminder of humid, salty air. Black fingers of mould scratched the corners of the ceiling.
And then one day my new companion joined me.
Somehow they opened the door.
They are mostly bones. A rotting hoodie and pair of grimy beige shorts provide some kind of outfit, and white patches of limescale ossify their clothes and limbs. Stalactites hang from the chin of the skull.
For a long time they were little more than a shadow in the far corner, head down, arms wrapped around stick legs. I tried to say hello once, but all it has ever done is nod. Experimental plates of food left by their skeletal fingers remain untouched.
Now they have more of a solid presence. Milky patches cling onto the carpet around their sodden trainers, and fuzzy patches run up the wall around their shoulders. I woke up at three in the morning the other day, and watched them not move. The tiniest dip of the head was their sole gesture of greeting.
Mum has stopped trying to get me to open the windows. The video keeps going, and I never move my laptop from its position. We can both watch.
Sometimes the entertainment gets repetitive. Much of the style and the content is so similar. We can spend fifteen minutes looking for new material, and fail on this simple quest.
I remember there were some pleasant places outside. The library. The milkshake shop. Watching the clouds in the park on a summer’s day.
Yesterday I found green marks on the back of my pillow. My nose is blocked most of the time.
I do not mind. The days have their own meaning now I have someone to look after.
Link: Mum has stopped trying to get me to open the windows.
