The Duvet Queen - SCP Foundation

It was a couple of days after visiting his brother that Blake noticed the scrappy note that had been pushed through his postbox, after the normal morning mail had been delivered. Rubbing sleep from his hopelessly tired eyes and wishing for a coffee, Blake sighed and pulled the note free. It had been written on the back of an envelope, in pen ink that started off navy, faded, and came back red. Kit didn't write often, but when he did, it was always with some confused desperation. One day, one of these was going to be his final note. One day. But probably not today, Blake considered, as he set to actually reading the invasive scrap of paper.

And the Duvet Queen moved across the room

Draped in her blankets

She absently rubs a tear from eye

And wonders when she started crying

Before she realised

“No, stop being silly

I was yawning, never crying.”

(Well, whatever you say.)

The window pane hinders her progress of floating and denial forever

And she looks out across her kingdom

Which is actually a car park

In an okay part of the city

She squints to a sign that she sure says something about parking

Or not parking, but still about parking

And realises she can’t read it

Not because it’s too far, not because she’s lost it

But because it’s pixelated like the music videos she used to watch

Before she lost access to the internet

When she was younger

She wonders if she’ll ever be able to understand authority again

As she absently reaches into the gap between her world and their’s

And pulls out a kitten she knows she’s not allowed

In her tiny council flat

She looks at the kitten and sees it in every detail

Its birth, life, and death

And decides amongst all the name to call it

‘Peaches’ seems to fit

And she places the kitten on the floor

Before going back to the machine that makes her coffee

And swallowing it hot,

With a handful of anti-psychotics

Peaches makes its peace with the flat

As the Duvet Queen watches curiously

Despite knowing its every move in advance

Then she goes to the front door to wait for the letters from authority

Letters that she knows she won’t be able to read

With their pixalated words and confusing suggestions

And she reaches into space again

Not her space, nor ours’

And pulls out a Rubix cube

(The kind she can never solve)

(Which, come to think of it, is all of them)

And sits on the dusty floor

Duvets gathered around her

And focuses all herself onto the Rubix cube

And waits, and waits, and waits

Whilst 16 identical cats and one new kitten

Explore the space around her

Disappearing into portals she’s opened before

But the kind she can’t go into herself

Because she’s stuck here

In her blankets

Ruling over a car park

Blake snorted disdainfully at the apparent poem. Its form was almost as scrappy as the paper it was written on. And, despite the recent interaction with his brother, he couldn't imagine who Kit was writing about - that this was the 'she' he alluded to in their last meet up. He aimed at the nearest bin, and chucked the trash away, returning to his trek to the kitchen to make Amber her morning tea.

Half way across town, Kit woke up with a fountain pen stuck to the side of his face, and three - no, four - pieces of paper scrunched up into balls in his hands. Faintly, he remembered writing something about someone, but, as always, had decided against posting it. He never wanted to display the way he chose to communicate, but something about writing made him feel less empty inside. He watched Peaches stride across the room, nuzzle his cheek, and bother the pen off his cheek. The kitten was right. Best to keep it to himself.

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