Sleeping in

"It's a fucking masterpiece." The man rolls his eyes and slaps me until tears splash down his fingers. Then he finishes dressing me . Braces roll down my breasts and I pull them away with my thumbs. "This is fucking ridiculous." He slaps me again and my head is swallowed in a hat that's far too big. To see anything I have to crane my head back. There's a girl I knew from a long time ago. She's always here. There's a kitten in her arms wrapped in a trenchcoat. "What happened to him? I have to tell him it's a masterpiece." The cat slaps me.

There's a party in the bath and she's sitting on my lap, playing with the edge of my hat. I'm drowning in her hair but she smells so good I don't want to push her off. But now she's babbling in French and I don't understand and I can't understand and I can't stop talking because if I stop talking they'll all leave me. Ducks roll out of the taps as I try to adjust the water and one of them spits a paper boat at me. It slices a line through my arm. I unfold it but the words won't keep still long enough for me to read them. The girl is kissing my neck and I keep pushing her away. The cat is curled up on my lap playing with the ribbon that hangs down from the top of my stocking. The man is on the phone telling everyone I've finished and they laugh and I struggle to get out of the tub to take the phone away. Somehow the girl dies. There's blood everywhere and I snatch the cat up and put him in my pocket with a ball of string. The boat crumbles in my fingers and petals stick to my skin.

Marie-Antoinette is in the kitchen slicing carrots and laughing. There are more cats in her hair. I disentangle them and try to rearrange them in the coat but they are just cats in a coat, nothing more. The dead queen lets out a shriek of laughter and a Russian shows me the door.

"It is the Queen's naptime," she places a finger to my lips and it tastes like metal. The cats are tangled again in one big kitten ball and I roll them out the door with me and when I wake up I'm staring at the blue of my carpet, my nose inches away from the pile of paper I stayed up too late scribbling on.