I was glad my poppies were wilting. That was why, I realised now (not having considered my actions before), I had ordered the vase to be taken away. The flower would have died anyway – why prolong the waiting? And I was jealous: jealous of their simplicity and obstinate beauty, jealous that they had been part of the world outside. They had nothing to do but exist. I believe that if I had had the strength to do so, I would have grasped those silky petals and destroyed the flowers – but at that moment, weariness overtook me, and I was dragged back into oblivious sleep.
When I woke up – but it wasn’t as deliberate as that. Better to say: when a tremor ran through my body and my eyelids twitched open involuntarily, an image of the room rushed through my inert eyes and I only saw it later, a memory seen through layers of sleep. It must have been in the early hours, because the room was filled with a cold blue light, and the shadows were precise on the striped wallpaper. The poppies lay dreaming on the table, their vivid whiteness now softened to cream. The door was slightly ajar and a strip of light stretched out into the corridor. There was a flash of scarlet on my pillow: the blood I had coughed up in the night had bloomed and stained the sheets.
The maid enters the shadowed
room, carrying the tools of her trade –
a fresh coverlet, a flannel, an
opulent urn of pot pourri to
freshen the heavy smell of
disease. She leaves them in
disarray while she busies
herself with the blinds, letting
shafts of light cut through the
dusty air. The girl sleeps in
a foetal curve on the bed,
her arms drawn in close to
her body. A red flower lies close
to her mouth, so insubstantial she
might have exhaled it. The maid puts it
next to the others distractedly, turning back
to wipe her face and unfurl her tense limbs. The corridor outside is silent; forbidden territory. She leaves hastily, as the girl on the bed stirs once again in her swift, pain-filled cycle of sleep and waking.
There is nothing to do but wait.
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