Seven and One

I cheated. This piece, while still flash fiction, is more than one hundred words above what is "allowed" for a Visual Dare. Ho Hum. I guess it's an editing fail. Thanks to Anonymous Legacy for yet another intriguing photo.

Seven and One

photo source

Like the beat-beat-beat of the tom-tom, Ella Fitzgerald's smooth croon floated over the room. The woman rubbed her face and swung her feet over the side of the low single bed. The spartan grey room contained eight narrow beds on simple bedframes, seven of which were topped with perfectly smooth white sheets and pillows. Her own warm, rumpled bed was dressed in black. No doors. No windows. A large ornate stereo stood in one corner. 

Stretching, she took a few steps on the bare grey concrete floor and smacked the needle away from the record. She pulled a black tunic over her white shift, and for the hundred millionth time or so (she'd lost count), from the corner of her eye, she saw her bedsheets pull themselves up and smooth themselves out. She sighed. The record player's arm moved back to the place where it had been interrupted, night and daaaaay, you are the one. She heard her sisters giggling nearby, and a second later they appeared in a white cluster. "How is it out there?" she asked automatically, eons past pretending to care about their answer. 

They continued to giggle. "It's all just too much!" said Thursday in singsong. "Spring, you know! Puddles!" The seven of them giggled even harder. 

"I'm ready for bed!" announced Monday, throwing herself onto a mattress. 

"Hmm," she grunted, dragging her feet toward the wall. 

"Good night, Night!" they said in unison, cackling as they always did and tossing their white robes onto the floor. Night walked through the wall and sat, alone in the dark and quiet. 

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