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Good Night, Moon

Short Stories, Tara Przybille Bradley

Good Night, Moon
By Tara Przybille Bradley
I flop down onto the blown up air mattress and put the plastic over my face. Over my head. I wonder how it looks. Does it look scary? Morbid? Do I look like a person in a movie who will soon be dead from asphyxiation? It gets warm inside the bag fast. Nice. Comfy, really. I sigh inside the dewy bag and lay there in the den on the bed that was made for me. I’m tired.
“Get that off your head. It looks horrible.”
I sit up and make death noises. Or whatever I think death noises would be.
“Does it? How does it look, really?” I ask from inside the bag. I don’t really want to know. I just want Kristen to describe it. To see if she will.
“You’re fucked up.” she rolls her eyes and shakes her head. How many times have I seen her do this? How many times has she thought that she doesn‘t know quite what to do with this freaky friend of hers? I take the bag off my head.
I will not smother today.
“Put the pillow back in the cover so the kids don’t mess it up on your way back home.”
“I love this pillow! Thank you! Love love love love….nice pillow. Finally, one of these is MINE!!” I kiss the pillow many times and pound my head on it. It is from Michigan. These pillows can only be found there. Her grandmother buys them at a store, don’t remember the name of it, and now Kristen has bought me one for my birthday. I am thinking that the store disappears once you walk out it’s doors. It is a mystical pillow store and it is very difficult to find. One needs a pillow divining rod to find it. Her grandmother is an ancient pillow seeker. I am in Seattle receiving my pillow.
“I’m tired.” My voice is muffled because I am lying face down on the mattress. I wish I was not feeling like I was still moving. The drive was long. The kids did well. They are champions of discomfort. Heroes of the long and rocky road. Stalwarts in the hardship they must bear with me as their mother. “It’s a good thing you bought me this pillow.”

0 thoughts on “Good Night, Moon”

  2. S A V A G E W A V E :
    Fuck no! I liked it goddammit. The idea of a ‘pillow divining rod’ and an ‘ancient pillow seeker’ holds me captive in your captivating blender of nighttime imagination. Is the story biographical or fiction from the 1st person? I think stores that sell mystical pillows do disappear after you leave the doors. But poets shouldn’t disappear! …And it seems you’ve been gone since Dec 2007? That’s the real crap. I have half a gumtion to whack the hell out of you with a pillow and start a pillow fighting ruckus. That’s right my Egyptian Cotton Pharoess! Ding Ding. “Welcome to UPFC, Ultimate Pillow Fighting Competition. In this corner wearing the Batman Underoo Trunks hailing from the South Houston Bayous, and one helluva egotistical maniacal superlative laxative luddite charlatan of shenanigans (and quite an uncorking Corker at Bacchacannals)…the Mofo.” {insert your intro here.}
    I really long for a good T-P&B sandwich with enthrallingly cool material that keeps me going to the end of the muffled day as i trudge like a stalwart champion of morbid scary deathnoise listening to my meager collection of Red Hot Chili Peppers Grammy albums dreaming of Anthony Kiedis’s ‘Scooby-Doo’ pillow cases. My heart is sorta broken, and the only cleaning utensil around is a dustmop {and one of those ‘anti-cling’ dryer sheets that prevent static.} Can you be my metaphorical maid?
    Alas, a fallen comrade, whose computer crashed? or got kidnapped by the new kids on the writer’s bloc? or just got tired of cavorting with crazy wannabees buzzing the killer hive nit-picnicing like a gaggling of love-sick poet-astirs who blind-dated the drunken ditch-digger ending up 6ft under life’s depraved horrid caresses [‘is that a grub worm?]. Is there a lighter side to this /comedy/drama/ s i l e n t fli ck ? or c a n t h e r e b e w o r d s withouttheoveracting?
    Good night Moon.
    Good morning Sun.

  3. What is it with women and pillows? I have known several, and married a couple, women who had an attachment to one pillow. On a trip once we left behind that pillow, called the place it was left at and the woman who answered the phone totally understood and mailed it back to us. Do many women latch cathect onto their pillows (like trucks for many men)? The whole “crying into your pillow” and loving your velveteen rabbit too well, perhaps? I had visions of the whole harem scene, swathed in pillows and realized that those stacks of brocaded throw-abouts might have had nothing to do with men. Men can sleep on cold linoleum tile and feel rested. What is it with women and pillows?
    This activated many thoughts in my head and brought to the surface ideas I had not thought through thoroughly. Thank you.

  5. Yeah, just what you wanted to see…a couple lunatics inspired by your stories and poetry. Welcome back, how was that year-long trek through the Amazon jungle? just kiddin. Glad to hear from you again.

  6. Being lunatic is very apropos.
    The Amazon is not all its cracked up to be. A lot of animals ready to attack, a lot of poison ready to sting and paralyze.
    I’d rather be in this asylum!

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