Childhood bed

When I was young, the summers seemed to last forever and the night took an age to finally claim the sky, I’d lie in my bed, listening to the sounds of the street outside. Children of my own age and teenagers would still be out there playing, laughing and doing the very thing I was restrained from.

Above me in a bunk bed, my brother sat, we’d whisper for a while, play fight until our father called up a warning. Then I’d sit back and make up stories to tell him, letting my mind wander around, until a snore confirmed he was no longer awake. My brother slept like the dead, it was so easy for him to find slumber, he’d lay there unmoving, his teeth grinding and his breathing as heavy as a bellows.

Reclined on my bed in that heat, covers kicked back, legs akimbo in my underpants and staring at the ceiling, my bed was a soft prison. Unable to sleep, the hours seemed to drag by, I could always hear the television down stairs and my parents as they moved around.

I remember the slow decline in human noise, when just bird song remained as sunset fell as late as ten o’clock in the evening. I would sit at a window watching twilight fall and marvelled at lights from the passing planes and the stars.