It was a couple of days after visiting his brother that Blake noticed the scrappy note that had been pushed through his postbox, after the normal morning mail had been delivered. Rubbing sleep from his hopelessly tired eyes and wishing for a coffee, Blake sighed and pulled the note free. It had been written on the back of an envelope, in pen ink that started off navy, faded, and came back red. Kit didn't write often, but when he did, it was always with some confused desperation. One day, one of these was going to be his final note. One day. But probably not today, Blake considered, as he set to actually reading the invasive scrap of paper.
And the Duvet Queen moved across the room
Draped in her blankets
She absently rubs a tear from eye
And wonders when she started crying
Before she realised
“No, stop being silly
I was yawning, never crying.”
(Well, whatever you say.)
The window pane hinders her progress of floating and denial forever
And she looks out across her kingdom
Which is actually a car park
In an okay part of the city
She squints to a sign that she sure says something about parking
Or not parking, but still about parking
And realises she can’t read it
Not because it’s too far, not because she’s lost it
But because it’s pixelated like the music videos she used to watch
Before she lost access to the internet
When she was younger
She wonders if she’ll ever be able to understand authority again
As she absently reaches into the gap between her world and their’s
And pulls out a kitten she knows she’s not allowed
In her tiny council flat
She looks at the kitten and sees it in every detail
Its birth, life, and death
And decides amongst all the name to call it
‘Peaches’ seems to fit
And she places the kitten on the floor
Before going back to the machine that makes her coffee
And swallowing it hot,
With a handful of anti-psychotics
Peaches makes its peace with the flat
As the Duvet Queen watches curiously
Despite knowing its every move in advance
Then she goes to the front door to wait for the letters from authority
Letters that she knows she won’t be able to read
With their pixalated words and confusing suggestions
And she reaches into space again
Not her space, nor ours’
And pulls out a Rubix cube
(The kind she can never solve)
(Which, come to think of it, is all of them)
And sits on the dusty floor
Duvets gathered around her
And focuses all herself onto the Rubix cube
And waits, and waits, and waits
Whilst 16 identical cats and one new kitten
Explore the space around her
Disappearing into portals she’s opened before
But the kind she can’t go into herself
Because she’s stuck here
In her blankets
Ruling over a car park
Blake snorted disdainfully at the apparent poem. Its form was almost as scrappy as the paper it was written on. And, despite the recent interaction with his brother, he couldn't imagine who Kit was writing about - that this was the 'she' he alluded to in their last meet up. He aimed at the nearest bin, and chucked the trash away, returning to his trek to the kitchen to make Amber her morning tea.
Half way across town, Kit woke up with a fountain pen stuck to the side of his face, and three - no, four - pieces of paper scrunched up into balls in his hands. Faintly, he remembered writing something about someone, but, as always, had decided against posting it. He never wanted to display the way he chose to communicate, but something about writing made him feel less empty inside. He watched Peaches stride across the room, nuzzle his cheek, and bother the pen off his cheek. The kitten was right. Best to keep it to himself.
