I felt somewhat better waking up the next morning. I attributed this to the two meals consumed the day before and I wondered if three meals a day might be even better. This would involve pilfering another unit. I put that off for now but not out of my agenda for the day. The first task I set myself was to thoroughly clean our one room and the kitchen, as I had the energy for it. I collected the garbage on the floor, mostly wrappers and spilt food. The rest of it was our own belongings, spilled out of our two suitcases and trampled many times and kicked into every corner of the room, as if a prison riot had taken place. A pillow had ripped open and there were feathers everywhere.
Some items of clothing I brushed off and folded up, put back in our suitcases. Others had tears in them or were too soiled and were trash. I found my Swiss army knife under my side table, a pen and pencil and a triangular ruler from my engineering days. All these I washed off and restored to my desk. The room was now as orderly as it could be. There was nothing I could do about the pealing wallpaper and the overall squalidness of the place with the bright sunlight streaming in. The redeeming factor in my mind was that I didn't think we'd be staying there much longer after I woke Mary up. I was gravitating towards that decision more with each passing hour. With the two of us alive again and a whole world to explore, this unit would quickly be a thing to leave behind.
This was the high point of my day. My next mission was to find another unused food cube. I was moving all of our garbage to empty unit next to ours. I checked it more thoroughly for anything I might have missed. That unit was ready for another meal, as the green indicator light was on. The unit was hooked up to water and sewage, so if the cubes were not consumed they were simply dumped when the next batch was ready. This machine might have been operating a year in that cycle, and it gave me good hope that I might find another vacant unit and triple our supply.
I'd never met any of our neighbors. We never left our room and I doubt they did either. Nobody had any need for trips out or visitors, any more than an old fashion telephone or a black and white TV. They were completely obsolete. That one visit by John was a singular event and probably the only one this building had ever known. I went to the next unit and tapped gently. After waiting a minute I banged loudly on the door. There was no answer. It was unlocked and I pushed it open. A foul stench wafted into my face. It was dark inside.
The dim light of the hallway only allowed me to make out a few indistinct shapes. The floor at my feet was very littered, worse than our place had been. Now I could make out the shapes of two people on the bed. As I approached I discovered to my horror that they were corpses, with patches of rotting flesh and hair and white bones visible beneath. I stepped back in shock, turned away to the trashed kitchen and saw again the green indicator light ready to serve. This all all I needed to know and I quickly closed the door and repaired to my own unit.
Another mystery. Was every door I opened going to deliver another totally unexpected surprise? I sat down at my table disconsolate. That could have been us, a ghastly scenario. I decided I would wake Mary this evening when she rose to dance and pee and eat, when she was in the lightest part of her dream state. And now, if she was angry at me for pulling her out of her pleasure world, I'd take her by the arm to that unit and say: "This is why".
Still I pondered the grizzly sight and only questions arose. What baffled me most was the fact that they were laying there dead side by side. Did they die simultaneously? Or did one perish first and the other out of grief for his lost partner? It would be hard to imagine that one could perish and the other not notice it for weeks and months. We visited each other in our dreams, at least occasionally and always with delight. And how did they die? Their food unit was intact. Could something in our dream state kill us? Maybe a monitor could, or some deadly dreamscape, though I'd never heard of any instance. We didn't even age and thought and acted like we'd live forever. But maybe it was old age in their case. I'd never know now.
Only hunger stirred me out of this dismal reverie. I went next door and repeated the day before, feeding Mary first and then myself. It was easier this time, cradling her head in my arm and gently piecing the cube in her mouth, and her responding as if she expected it. I looked out the window and evening was upon us.
