A Few Houses Down

She didn't get up because she wanted to, she got up because she didn't want bedsores. She had watched her grandmother and mother succumb to them slowly, let them grow on their bodies like algae. That was not about to be her. But she, still, preferred staying in bed.

Days were long and mornings were worse. At the slightest hint of sunlight she would wake, legs numb, mind unrefreshed, scared and comfortable in her soft down comforter. It, her sheets, everything was white, she liked to surround herself in white. It was a way to make herself feel clean when everything else around her felt so dirty.

She wasn't lonely or depressed. Her figure was fine. She had no interest beyond her little room, what sat outside the walls was certainly not her business. Or maybe it was. She didn't care. Maybe that was it. She just didn't care.

They had gotten sick, both of them, at the same time. It was cruel, laughable almost. She watched the two of them fade away a few houses down from each other. She watched the blood pool, the skin split. She watched them each give up, say no, grow weaker. But still all she wanted way to stay in bed, to feel the cool swaddle of the hundreds and hundreds of threads. To let them in somehow, if she could. But when it hurt too much, she got up.