THAT DRESS

We come into the bedroom and find it has escaped from its box.  We shut it in the room with us, but it still wreaks havoc, racing around and trashing the furniture.  It tears through your suits with its claws and rips apart my favourite dress with its bony hands.  We are well drilled with what to do.  We sit on our bed with our fingers stuffed in our ears and our eyes firmly shut, waiting for it to exhaust itself.

Eventually, you nudge me; “I think it’s tiring.  Are you ready?”

“Yes,” I whisper, “we mustn’t look at it.”  I recall the last time I glimpsed its green flesh and emerald eyes.  It took us days to recover.
“It’s behind us,” you murmur.
I feel its rank breath on the back of my neck and cry; “Now!” We turn; eyes shut and grab its slippery body, holding on tight.  It puts up one hell of a struggle.  We stagger, holding it between us to the box.  We are well versed in the techniques of putting it back in, but it seems to take forever.  It’s so hard to work with your eyes shut, but we stick to the routine.  You hold it, I force down the lid and you remove yourself at the last possible second ... Finally after four failed attempts, we trap it and can open our eyes again.  We sit on the box while it howls obscenities from within and reminds us of the past - of every argument that we ever had.  It feeds on attention, being listened to, looked at and fought with.  We’re aware that even our tussle with it has given it strength.  It can never die; being put in a box and ignored is the only thing that can weaken it.  We hold each other, kiss, reaffirm our love and it finally shuts up.

You glance at me wearily, get up and leave the room.  I remain sitting, racking my brains as to how it could have got out.  You went out last night and I heard it moving in the box, whispering maliciously to me, but I let the words wash over me as trained and you came back, didn’t you?  Albeit two hours after you said you would, a little drunk, but nothing out of the ordinary.  Maybe it was something I did.  There are verbal and non verbal signals that allow it to escape and it seems to me that these days the slightest little thing can release it.  I didn’t mean what I said this morning though, before I put my little dress on and went to the office ... Well, that dress is torn up in pieces in the corner now and I can never wear it again.