Bedtime voices
Our bedroom is at the front of the house, facing the street. So there's often noise, which can be annoying, and is one of the reasons we're moving. Well more accurately put, is one of the things we're trying to improve by moving. The reasons we're moving are many and I won't get into them. But in my list of 'what the next house will be' you'll see the seeds of 'what's wrong with the last house'. This list is: the next house will be detached, new (or newly renovated) on a quieter street, with parking. Can you guess what's wrong with this place? Perhaps the only thing missing is "without mice" and that would pretty much cover it.
It's embarrassing really. I guess it's how good families feel when their kid comes home with lice. You want to scream "but we're not dirty". Thing is, we are messy, and people often mistake one for the other. The mice have. No really, I�m convinced our not entirely conscientious neighbors are harboring the little critters and we're getting them through the crevices between our houses. And there are crevices if the cooking smells are anything to go by. In the middle of winter, with all our and their windows shut we can tell what they're cooking (late at night strangely). And mice have no shoulders so they don't need much of a crevice (really that�s why they can get through such wee spaces).
But I digress, I was talking about the bedroom and the front of the house. The weather is just starting to turn fine enough to leave the windows open, and I'm glad. I love the open cool damp spring air. I am convinced I'd have been one of those parents who believe in the curative power of cold/damp. (it's an Irish thing don't try and understand).
So last night I was laying in bed under the window, well actually at the window as our bed in unnaturally high, when I heard some people walk by. I got the slow-Doppler effect of their conversation, only catching a snippet. I was just dozing off, in that sweet, stupid space between wake and sleep. The one where you're suggestive, weird, and not thinking clearly. I think you almost become like a child in that moment. Your higher reasoning has already punched the clock and picked up his lunch pail and left. Your Id hasn't arrived yet to dance dreamy all night long. But for sure the steam whistle has already rung (think the dog and the coyote from the cartoon: "morning George." "Morning Ed".)
Last night in that moment - shift change of the mind - someone walked by and I caught only one snippet of what he said. "I like to go to sleep in a warm room, and wake up in a cold room."
And my dumb-mind said back to me: "Who moves him?"
Funny what a misplaced modifier can do to a writer's mind.