Thursday, is cardigan day. Beige. I like it better than turtleneck day. Monday. Yesterday was wooly Wednesday and I wore my peacoat with the collar up, a young Brando, as the fog moved in.
This morning at 7:45 AM, I'm counting the last drips from my coffee maker, my hands smoothing the bedcovers and scanning for debris, humming my morning psalm to my ceramic menagerie. In the center of the collection is Aldous, the sassiest unicorn. He's got a spiral horn and a gilded tail. I kick up my leg behind me as I scoot by indicating my playful acknowledgement of his flare and finger wagging flamboyance. He winks, a trick of light when he's lined up just right as the sun hits the window. Ting!
I pour a cup in my Mishigami U Alumni mug and sit at the breakfast nook in my cozy one bedroom flat like I do every morning. Reciting my affirmations, checking my posture, and visualizing my intention for the day. More than ritual, it's my power and positioning in an imperfect world.
The spoon on saucer rattle gives me a twitch. They are renovating somewhere in the building. Then I hear the fragile plinks of my mythic showcase shimmying in vibrating spasms across the mid-century plane. Greggy the tiniest unicorn is about to drop, so I lunge toward the shelf but it's too late. His stubby head point hits the parquet, his neck breaks. He eyes me sadly as his face spins away under the side table. I can feel the buzz through my buttocks and notice the pull string of my floor lamp swinging in jagged obliques.
Maybe it's seismic. So I think about going to the window but notice Toughy and Grace are also about to careen from the heavens. I can only catch one.
From this vantage, i can see into the bathroom and am perturbed by the presence of a light yellow stain on the wall, under my sink. I hold Grace tight. Maybe too tight because I feel something crack between my fingers.
I want to cry. I want to change apartments. I want to get as far away from the dirty dirty thing as possible. I will call Miss Ursula, the building manager and make an official complaint.
Turns out poor Toughy wasn't so tough. I roll onto my stomach and count the pieces of his shattered body skittering to the staccato machinations infecting the warm peace of my home.
I shift my legs and kneel, steadying myself with a palm pressing into the floor, when I feel the needling stab of a porcelain shard puncturing the skin. Pulling out the sliver of unicorn foreleg, I am transfixed by the bubble of blood bursting into my hand.
A film drifts in my vision. And the light blinks out as I collapse into the wee rubble.
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