The Broken Bed, the Night I Said Nothing 🔥1

The night the bed broke, I didn't call anyone.
I didn't feel scared, nor did I think to ask for help.

That was normal.

────
Around the time I entered junior high, I had one wish.

I wanted my own room.

I couldn't keep things tidy.
I hated studying, too.

Even so, having a space of my own
felt like getting closer to being an adult.

Sleeping alone.
Spending time alone.

I wanted that place.

────

Our home was an old, detached house.
There were several small rooms on the second floor.

Among them was a vacant room with a nice view, about three tatami mats in size.

I wanted that room no matter what.

I kept asking from the time I was in sixth grade,
and just before I started junior high, I finally got my father's permission.

“Yay!
Thank you, Dad.”

I spun around right there.
My wish had finally come true.

────

Right around that time, my father suddenly said,

“I’m going to build a bed for the children's room.”

My father liked DIY, and he would buy lumber
to build shelves or fix the floor.

However, he wasn't the type of person
to do anything big for his children.

So honestly,
I wasn't very moved.

“Oh, so there’s one for me too?”

That was about it.

If I put a bed in a three-tatami room,
the room would become even smaller.

I thought about it and removed the sliding doors of the closet.
I moved the futons and belongings that were inside.

Then I asked my father,

“I want you to make a bed that fits
inside the closet space.”

My father actually started building it.

A bed with a slightly princess-like shape,
made by combining round pieces of wood.
It was a handmade piece with plywood laid over solid wood.

Sometimes he would make me help by saying “Hold this” or “Press that down,”
and if things didn't go as he wanted, he would get angry immediately.

A bunk bed was built for my younger sisters.

“That’s amazing.”

That was my honest impression.

────

One night, about two years after it was completed,

I was fast asleep.

CRACK.

Suddenly, there was a loud noise.

In that instant, my body fell downward.

For a moment, it felt like my body was floating in mid-air.
Like when a roller coaster drops,
my internal organs felt pulled.

“...?”

When I opened my eyes,
the bed rail was higher than usual.

After a while, I understood.

The bottom of the bed had fallen out.

“That was a surprise...”

I said just that, and went right back to sleep.

I didn't think to wake anyone up.
That kind of idea didn't even exist for me.

The next day, I put the warped frame back,
and put the plywood back in place.

It returned to its original shape.

I didn't tell anyone.

After that, the bottom fell out several more times.

Each time, I fixed it in silence.

By the time I was in my third year of junior high,
I had learned to find spots where it wouldn't fall through to sleep.

If I let my guard down, I would fall again.

Even so, I continued to use that bed
until I graduated from high school.

────

Even when I returned after leaving home once,
I knew it was broken, but
I slept in that bed again.

When my marriage was decided, my father told me,

“If you're moving out, clear out everything in your room.”

I left the house, leaving the bed as it was.

A month later, when I returned to pick up my things,
nothing was left in the room.

The bed, everything, was gone.

────

My father had always been
a symbol of fear and anger for me.

If I had been raised differently,
would we have had a different relationship?

I sometimes think about that.

Whether my father loved us or not,
I still don't really know.

However, the desire to do something
for his children
must not have been completely absent.

Even so, to me, my father
was always a presence of oppression.

And I,

had somehow become skilled at
finding places to sleep where I wouldn't fall, even if it broke.

──────────
🫧Me in this form

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈
Read this event from a different perspective

▷ Why did I continue to use the broken bed (Analysis)
┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

▶ ︎ To the next event (The day my complex was laughed at)

← To the table of contents for this chapter [Distortion]
← Read this entire story [Series List]