Bones

an excerpt

The skeleton in my closet is loud tonight. She doesn’t make it very easy to sleep. Her bones click-clank-clunk, porcelain-white, grinding a few feet away from my bed.

“Are you having trouble sleeping?” the skeleton asks. Her voice is muffled from behind the closet door.

“Yes,” I admit.
“Good,” she says.
I am a little spiteful, so I’ve made my closet as uncomfortable as possible for her. Like

geological strata, there are layers to the detritus. First come my shoes, from these-will-kill-me heels to heavy winter boots to Converse to flip-flops to my work boots that Jackie once called “badass.” Old sports gear is next, archaeological artifacts from younger years: tennis rackets, a basketball, golf gloves, shin guards. Last was my “stuff” layer, a mishmash of shirts and board games and paperback novels I said I would read and never did.

On top of it all, the skeleton lounged.