skeletons

Here's a piece that erupted spontaneously as I was working on my play this morning. It just kept going and going, and while it was way too long to use in the context of the play, I was having way too much fun with it to just toss it out. :-)

Enjoy.

Skeletons

If you’ve lived any kind of an interesting life, once you reach a certain age you’ll find that there isn’t a closet big enough to contain all your skeletons. You stuff the clattering bones in there as best you can. But before too long they start to spill out, little by little, bone by bone.

At first it’s just a metatarsal here, the end of a finger bone there, occasionally the odd tooth will roll out--embarrassing when you have guests, but it’s nothing that can’t be swept under the rug or kicked under the dresser. But soon, as the closet fills up, the bones that roll out get bigger--here’s a skull, there’s a femur; I knew him, Horatio. Where be your gibes now?

Before you know it, you’ve got complete skeletons piled in the corners of the bedroom.

You might find this amusing for a while. Maybe you stack them neatly at first, hanging clothes off them as if they were a neglected treadmill. Or maybe you pile them up with books and magazines as though they were shelving units from some macabre Ikea. You laugh at your skeleton sculptures along with your friends, with a small note of self-deprecation, just a touch of embarrassment, but no big deal.

But soon enough, the skeletons grow populous enough that you’re forced to start stuffing them under the bed. Eventually you’re jamming them into that space between the bed and the wall. One day, you’re in a hurry to get out the door and so you toss one on the end of the bed--just temporarily, just until you can get home that night and make some room for it...somewhere.

Before you know it, they’ve taken over the bed. You’ve got skeletons stacked like cordwood on your Tempurpedic mattress until they nearly reach the ceiling. Pretty soon there’s no room for you in your own bedroom anymore.

So you say fuck it, and you start sleeping at other people’s houses.

Which, of course, leads to more skeletons...

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