A really Short Story

The air inside his door shivered patiently, humming with the unfiltered and unsorted debris of his body. It had been undisturbed all day, wafting itself in layers, with the heavier matter descending to the fuzzy earth of the carpet, and the lighter items spiralling upwards only to be caught on the outstretched arm of a sweater, where they now lay side by side with dust mites and the scent of stale tobacco.

The cold had ensured that the solitary window to the room had been unopened for months now. No fresh breath of cleansing air, no external current to disturb the layers of dirt and dead skin. No touch of the winter sun or of the morning dew. No natural light or lunar beams. All controlled, all enclosed, silent.

Were he not to come back one day what would happen to this room? What would happen to the dust in its slow war on form? What would become of the miniscule colonies of life in the room, hidden beneath carpets or locked within the many levels of the mattress? Could the room take on an identity of its own - an ecosystem or a battleground?

Just as the stale air of the room began to demand answers to these questions, the occupant returned.

The patterns and eddies of the air were broken asunder as the door opened. The pools of light and dark behind the curtains were mercilessly crushed by the cruel flick of the ever-suffering light switch. The rug, which had been seeking to expand itself to fill the indentations made by shoes in the morning, was smashed flat in several places again by the weight of the boot.

Its own patterns, patiently constructed over the day, fell away. The silent structures of the solitary room were again replaced by the tyranny of man's laws and habits.

But the room knew no other law. It could not rebel, and did not elect its representatives. In fact, it was hardly alive at all. Hardly.