The Lonely Saga of the Spring Air

This mattress knew a few good years. They couldn’t take that from it. It lay nestled and snug in the corner of a tastefully decorated room. Where it got plenty of sunshine and soft sheets. No one ever jumped or spilled on it. It was a merry period.

But then in the dead of night it was yanked from the clutches of comfort. And thrown slipshod into the back of an unmarked van. The mattress could hear heavily accented whispers. And laughter. Hollow and frightening laughter.

Not sure how many weeks have passed. The mattress was struck by a coat of harsh sun. Not the soft dusk light it was used to. These rays were abrasive and judgmental. And unrelenting above all. It awoke to a street corner in Los Angeles. Good and shanghaied.

Now Matty spends all day on this corner. Used and abused. Letting whoever and whatever crawl all over and have their way. Just for the sake of the faintest recollection of what it was like to be warm and at ease. Once a source of security. Now a bastion of bedbugs and other such transmittable maladies.

More weeks pass. The mattress is saggy and soiled. And is traded cavalierly among the street population. It’s a type of tragedy that happens a thousand times before breakfast. And even now there’s a million Matties out there slumped along anonymous chain-link fences. Hopped up and hoped-out.

A spring coil protruding from the side. Tangled into a grotesque grin. As if smiling wistfully at the past. One that reverberated with the sturdy sighs of spines past. And not with the rusty creaks the weary future holds.

Good night, Matty. For your great nights are behind you.