...of infirmity

He slowly got closer and closer until his hand felt the warmth of the cold steel. He leaned against the door jamb for a brief second, looking at his bed, then tilted forward until he bumped into it. He scrambled onto it and let his body unbend in the soft warmth of the mattress. His right eye was buried in the pillow, the left peered at the wall. The left lid blinked when necessary. His lungs functioned. His arms hugged the body of the pillow, his hands gripping the edge. It seemed like a toe moved. He could smell and feel the warmth of his breath as it flowed into the pillow then billowed into his face. It was his breath. It was good to feel. And it was all he could hear. It flowed into the pillow, then billowed around his face. He could feel, too, his heart, and it seemed like he could hear it, but he only felt it. Could only feel the unheard beating. And he could feel his chest. His lungs functioned, but he felt his chest. He could feel the pressure on his right ear pressing into the pillow, and could feel the left exposed to the cooler air. He could feel the beat of his heart in his shoulders, could feel it beat down his arms and hands, into the cheek buried in the pillow. Warmly buried in the pillow. The other out in the air, quiet, still, seemingly cool, and free from the beating of the heart and the flowing of the blood as if the flowing and beating stopped at the neck and that cheek was just there, a companion of the other yet completely unattached even to the exposed and cool ear. Air was forced, almost thrust, into his chest, yet it was done silently. Everything was silent. The bodies moving in the corridoor. The trays being piled on carts. The flies buzzing around the commode in the corner. The only sound was the sound of his breath flowing into the pillow and filtering into his face.
He remained twisted into the mattress, silent and motionless, save for the needed blinking of an eyelid.

[The Room, Selby Jr., H.]