The Living Room

THE LIVING ROOM. A month ago her husband had been mesmerized by their neighbours fish tank. Now a brand new carpet adorned the living room. The unlikely connection between these two events did not surprise Silvia White in the least. Making unlikely connections was what kept her husband employed. Their house was a shrine to invention and the prototypes filling the rooms today would be expensive but indispensable products tomorrow. Silvia aimed a look of annoyance at Glen but he was too busy marching up and down the room treading cake crumbs into the lush blue floor. “I thought we had an agreement”, she said, quietly seething as he finished a mouthful of fruit cake and allowed a few more currents to land among the fibres, “I let you fill the house with as much of your work as you like but the living room is mine”. “What dear?”, he mumbled, hunching down and picking at the material as if searching for a lost contact lens. “This is my showroom Glen. People come here expecting me to design their dream house, inside and out. I've got a paranoid client waiting on three different kinds of door lock and steel window shutters...that match the wallpaper...I had to hire a truck to deliver the swatches! I don't need to come home to find that without my permission you have installed a blue monstrosity. What sort of faith will it inspire if they visit and think I can't colour coordinate my own front room”. Glens only response was to overturn his glass of Merlot. Then with practised showmanship he spread his arms wide and shouted, “Ladies and gentlemen. I present the worlds first self cleaning carpet”. She looked down at the puddle of wine staining the carpet like a fresh bullet wound and sniffed. With the air of a conjurer Glen strode to the curtains and pulled them shut. It was an over cast day and the room was plunged into darkness. He led his wife outside and shut the door. “I can't stand here wasting time Glen I have to send pastel charts to the locksmith”. Still ignoring her Glen wandered into the kitchen to make a pot of tea. By the time it was brewed and drunk they were back in the living room standing on a spotless carpet. “Very clever. Where do they hide”. “They?”. “The little buggers that you've programmed to scout around picking up the mess”. “A good magician.....”, was all Glen would say as he left and bounded upstairs to make a phone call. Silvia was bare foot as usual when indoors and the carpet felt unpleasantly warm beneath her feet. She could see Glen's footprints slowly disappearing as the fibres straightened themselves. A muted sound almost made her jump but she quickly realised that the telephone extension had been left off of its hook. It was the laugher that made her pause and carefully listen in on her husband and what must have been his lover making plans for the weekend. She made sure she could be heard coming up the stairs and by the time she entered Glens workshop he was off the phone and sitting at his P.C. Having arrived she was at a total loss as to what to say to him and glanced over his shoulder trying to fathom the equations and formula he was working on. Nothing doing. Instead her eyes fell on a glass beaker filled with yellow liquid and containing a square piece of carpet. Grateful for even a momentary distraction from poison thoughts she turned the beaker around and found that it's underside was a layer of translucent, pink tissue through which blue veins ran like a section of placenta. Next to the beaker was a packet of fish food. She remembered Glen staring for hours at sea anemones in a tank and repulsion forced a slick of bile into her mouth as she made the connection. “It's alive!”, she shrieked. “Of course”, replied Glen calmly. “It's sick!, even for you it's gross”. She had walked across it bare foot. Bare foot! “Nonsense. It doesn't have feelings. It can't be hurt”.

“It's akin to vivisection! You know my views on things like that. Do you honestly think that people will stomach seeing their own carpet sucking up bits of food?”. “That's all it is really. One very thin gastrovascular cavity stretched out to room size and fed by Cilia in the form of contractile fibres. Light acts as a soporific trigger. It only feeds in the dark”. He turned and looked directly at her. “So you don't need to watch. It all happens after the lights are out and everybody's gone to bed”. “Monster! Get it out of my house”. Silvia punctuated her words by hurling the offending jar at her husband. He ducked and the contents spilled across the computer. With a loud bang and a smell of burning plastic the screen went dead along with the rest of the household electrics. “Bitch! You could have electrocuted me”. He stumbled about in the darkness and she had the satisfaction of hearing him crack his head against a shelf. “The circuit breakers have gone. You fix it. I going to the pub”. He found his way downstairs and out of the house. Silvia, who had no intention of fixing anything made her way up to the bathroom. There would still be plenty of hot water in the tank and she wanted to treat herself to a long soak. Candles lit and bubble bath poured she sat in the near scalding water. Feeling it slowly cool and thinking about work. Her current client, the one paranoid of being burgled, had needed some persuading before agreeing to the extra bedroom and large kitchen. All her designs were generous with space. She could never imagine anyone wanting to live alone. When she got tired of shivering in tepid water she heaved herself out onto freezing tiles and took stock of the situation. A hot drink and a working thermostat were only a circuit breaker away. She trailed puddle footprints downstairs and began to search the house, frustrated that yet again the torch had been used but not put back in its place. So frustrated that she was halfway across the living room before she remembered. She froze, feeling her bare feet pressing down on the thick, warm fibres. Just walk out again she thought. Just turn around and start walking. She mentally pushed through the fear and managed to take a step backwards which was when the floor rippled beneath her feet. She lost her balance and fell. Lying there in the darkness, heart hammering like a piston she understood that a person could die of fear. The carpet was still at first. Then slowly, patiently it began to suck the foamy suds from her body. Glen spent a long weekend with his lover and it was midday before he was wearily parking the 4x4 and composing an argument that would turn the fact of his adultery into the fault of his wife. The garage light stayed resolutely off and some blearily eyed investigation lead to the discovery that Silvia had not bothered to reset the breakers. Cursing under his breath Glen restored power to the house then marched into the kitchen ready to calmly face down the recriminations. But none came. The house was quiet. He entered the living room and found himself walking on multi coloured flakes. He picked up a handful and sniffed. Fish food. The door was pulled closed from the outside with an unaccustomed click. A lock! Someone had fitted a lock to the living room door! He tested it. Then began pounded on the wood only pausing when he heard the front door open and close. “Silvia?”. In response beige shutters slid downwards blocking his view of the driveway. Again the front door opened and closed leaving Glen staring in utter confusion at the now totally sealed windows. He only managed to get half of the way towards them before the light went out. Several months later with the final police interview completed and the acquaintances from New Scientist magazine politely but firmly ushered out of the house Silvia breathed a long sigh and began her new life. There were old clients to contact. Papers to sign and unread bills to be paid but they would still be there tomorrow. Right now as she had repeatedly told all the grieving well wishers what she needed most was some time alone. Whistling, she made her way upstairs and began to fill the bath.