THE INTERPRETATION

I was awake in bed, but I kept my eyes closed because the sunlight seemed too bright to be real. The wind that was gently blowing couldn’t be coming through the window I knew I’d shut the night before. When I heard the slow, sad whistle of an old steam engine I could no longer hold off my curiosity and let my eyes roll open. I was sitting upright in bed, but my room was nowhere to be seen. The two mattresses were the same ones I’d been sleeping on for eight years and the green plaid comforter, which had been a gift to me as an infant, was twisted up around my legs. My bed had been moved into the middle of a golden swaying sea of grain somewhere in the middle of Idaho. At the foot of my bed was the beginning of another identical bed, minus me sleeping in it, of course, because I couldn’t possibly be in two places at once, could I? Behind me was another bed just like the second one. A bed train. Again I heard the whistle of the historical steam engine and looked off to the east, into the morning sun, and saw a southbound coal drag chugging its way along the horizon. All of the sudden, for some reason unknown to me, I felt horny. My crotch dampened with anticipation, my nipples hardened in the wind, and my breasts ached to be touched. I was calm about the whole situation until I heard the policeman yelling at me. He was in the opposite direction of the freight train and on the left of my bed train. His uniform looked funny, as if he’d stolen it from a museum. Then I realized the uniform was only as old as the steam engine. The policeman was yelling at me to get out of the field. He waved his club with a malice that struck fear in me. I pushed back the covers and got out of bed. My bare feet sunk slightly in the moist topsoil and I felt guilty about crushing down the beautiful grain beneath my slight weight, let alone those three heavy beds. I became red with embarrassment when I noticed I was only wearing one of my father’s white button-down work shirts. Two buttons together at the navel was all that held the shirt to me against the wind. “You can’t leave those beds out there!” the policeman yelled threateningly, not even noticing my near-nudity. “I’ll have to arrest you if you leave those out there!” Then a new voice spoke from my immediate right. “Come on, damnit. I’ll help you move them.” It was this guy I knew but I couldn’t think of his name. He seemed mad at me. It was unusual because we’d always gotten along so well. He pulled a big hunting knife from his boot and began swiping at the bottom of the mattresses. I guessed he was cutting some rope he’d found, but I couldn’t see any rope on my side of the bed. He looked up and saw I wasn’t doing anything to help and became angry. “Damnit! You’re going to get me into trouble!” He jumped across the bed and started slicing at my right forearm and upper thighs. “I hate you for this!” he screamed. As I watched the blood drip onto the field of grain below me, the deep red crimson melting over the brilliant golden amber, I understood. He was cutting the foundation out of my legs. Whatever was in my right arm was the thing in my life that was holding me back. He tried to cut that away, too. It didn’t hurt, but I bled anyway. Things would need to change.