Oh. Could you not clean under there? Under the bed? Please don’t look under there. I’d feel so grateful. I really would. You don’t have to worry. There’s nothing there. It’s not like that. There’s nothing under the bed.

It’s just that I would feel better if I knew there was some place in here, in this room, in this place, if I knew that there was some place where nobody but me ever looked. Ever. And see? It could be under the bed. The place. The private place. It could be there because, see? It’s already dark.

You’re always here so early in the morning. I see you come in because I’m awake early always too, even though I’m supposed to be practising staying in bed and breathing deeply and going back to sleep and not jumping up and running about when I wake up. I’m not though, practising. So, in the mornings, when the door at the end of the hall goes beep and clangs open and you walk in, well I’m always already watching. From in here I mean, with my face pressed up tight against the little plastic window in the door.

It’s the dreams. Once I’m awake, I’m so relieved to have escaped them that, well, it makes no sense to lie down again and try to sleep. Lord, lead us not into temptation!

My grandmother would say that before we ate Christmas dinner. That was the last little bit of grace. Lord, lead us not into temptation! And I could see it, sitting in my faux velvet dresses that were a different colour every year but always otherwise the same and my hair pulled into braids. I mean I could see temptation, like a gingerbread house all done up in icing and gumdrops. I could taste it in my mouth, temptation, and I would know, with my guts turning to ice and concrete, that I was already there, inside it, inside temptation. And I would think, how do you get out when you’re already there? Well, you can understand how my grandmother never liked having me for Christmas and would say over me to my mother, I don’t know why I ask you two. I cook all day and no one eats.

But I meant to talk to you about the woman in the bed under the window. The bed that was empty when I came here and isn’t now. Well, it’s empty now obviously. She has an appointment, but you know what I mean. What I mean to say is, she snores! What can they be giving her that she sleeps like that? Could you ask for someone to change it? Because she snores and I can’t wake her to tell her to stop.

I leapt up on her bed last night when I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and screamed, There’s a fire! There’s a bloody fire and we’ll all die in here if you don’t wake up! But they only came and scooped me off her and gave me medicine and new appointments. But, don’t you see? It was just the snoring!