I set my pen down, weary of the horror of what I was recounting.  I gazed around the room.  It was now night, with only two dim LED s and a streetlight shinning through the parted curtains illuminating my table.  Two candles could have provided this much light.  I decided to call it quits and lie down in bed.

There was a pillow on the floor, lying there who knows how long.  I collected it and straightened the sheets, crawled in beside Mary and had the strangest thought, I couldn't dream.  What point was there to life without that.  It had been the only point for the last five years.  Now a sense of loneliness engulfed me.  I was alone.  I was the only human on this planet not dreaming.  And to top it off I was cold.

But I'd never been a melancholy or despairing type in my youth and I spent the next hour wondering if there were any others like me somewhere, and perhaps if I could find them.  That would give me a purpose and even a hope, to continue living in this cold, empty, dark world.  Perhaps I should even wake Mary and take her with me on this quest.  This thought warmed me.  But I had a hesitation about this for good reason.  I would be ripping her forcibly out of her cozy cocoon, without her permission, into this depressing world.  It might destroy her love for me, whatever was left, as we hardly conversed anymore.  It was a dilemma I would have to sleep on and miraculously enough, I fell asleep.

The next morning, since I left the curtains open, bright sunlight streamed into our bedroom and woke me.  It was a strange affair because I couldn't recall any dreams, or anything.  Yet I did feel a bit refreshed, at least enough to sit up in bed and look around me.  The first sight I focused on was right beside me and it was shocking.  It was Mary's bare arm and hand, the rest of her body as usual buried under the cover in a fetal position.  They were so skinny, atrophied almost, and her skin was pale and sickly.  Her fingernails were months overgrown.  She had pulled down the sheet I covered us with the night before, probably in some dreaming reflexes, and I noticed deep scratches on my own skinny and white upper leg next to her hand, three red lines inches long.

I rose right away with a mission.  I was going to nurse and manicure her.  She looked so feeble and sick, such a shell of her former self, it struck a deep chord of pity it me.  It was a commandment from my heart.  I had to aid her.  I went to our littered bathroom.  On a shelf I found the nail clipper.  There were old cosmetics and little bottles of perfume, some knocked over and a tube of lipstick on the floor, things she had brought with her and long ago stopped using.  I wondered that I hadn't done this before but we were always so lost in dreams, we hardly noticed each other.  I looked down at my own hand and wondered why my nails were sloppy but trim.  Then I remembered I'd always been a nail biter and did this unconsciously all my life.  Even this endeared me to her, her femininity from before and always one to do things properly, hygienically, or not all all.

I clipped her nails and used a bucket of warm water to wash her face and entire body with a towel.  Her hair was a tangled mess and after a shampooing I spent an hour with scissors and combs straightening it.  The whole time she just lay there without opening her eyes.  Her limbs were limp.  As I starred at her torso she must have weighed only eighty pounds, far off the hundred and thirty I remembered, as she was the same height I was, five feet ten, and had the most beautiful figure, perfect I use to tell her when in her arms.

This sad declension in her health affected me deeply and leaned the scales in my head to shock her of of this state, right away.  But then the countervailing objections came to mind.  What if she'd hate me for it, making her enter this stark, ugly, painful reality with me, another scarecrow figure just like her, with no plan and probably no future.  And I wasn't about to stick a socket to her face and hold her tongue in it.  I decided I would put it off a few days.  I would tend to her like a nurse, reconnoiter the building and maybe the streets and most of all, devise a way to administer the jolt in a kinder manner.  This would give me time to think.  I always was cautious in making a life changing decision.  I, and people like me called it thoughtfulness.  Others called it cowardice.

Now I decided I would clean.  The appearance of our unit had to be neat and orderly if I was to wake her.  There would be enough shocking sights for her to digest waking out of her dreams.  She didn't need one more.  I began with the bathroom.  It was small and I was tired from my battle with her hair.  There was debris covering the floor, soiled tissue that had missed the bowl, a sink and shower stall covered in a yellowish slime, some smeared lipstick and a broken vile.  But by mid-afternoon it was presentable again.  This was enough for one day.  I would continue tomorrow.

Besides being tired I felt hungry, a sensation I hadn't felt in years.  I pushed the button on our food cube but nothing came out.  It wasn't ready yet.  It took a full day to process two cubes and I think we always ate at night.  I had a box of trash and didn't know where to put it so I opened our door to an empty and dimly lit hall.  It was completely silent.  There were some fifteen other units in this structure all similar to ours.  I remember visiting two when we first moved in.  We picked the one at the far end because the one window seemed better placed to light our room, a window until recently curtained shut and useless.

I noticed the door to the next unit was slightly ajar.  This seemed strange.  All the others further down were shut.  I stepped out for the first time in years and tapped on it.  No answer.  I pushed the door and could see through the dimness the room was vacant.  The bed was there and the chair and table with what looked like an open suitcase upon it.  I went in and turned on the bedside light.  To my surprise the room was relatively clean, with every appearance of having been empty a long time.  Hunger drove me to the food cube and out came what I wanted, two meals.  I took them back, ate one and force fed the other to Mary, pondering this new mystery of the empty flat beside us.

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