#cheap memory foam mattress

[bedsdivans1]

 What are the different types of mattresses?

Mattresses

Mattresses come in a variety of shapes, sizes, materials, and styles. There are innerspring, memory foam, latex, hybrid, adjustable, and air mattresses. Each mattress type has its own unique benefits and features. Innerspring mattresses are affordable and provide good support. Memory foam mattresses are great for conforming to the body and relieving pressure points. Latex mattresses are naturally hypoallergenic, durable, and mold to the body. Hybrid mattresses combine the benefits of innerspring and memory foam or latex mattresses. Adjustable mattresses are motorized and allow you to adjust the firmness and comfort level. Air mattresses are typically portable and provide adjustable firmness levels.

                      Types of mattresses

 1. Innerspring mattresses: Innerspring mattresses are the most popular type and feature a steel coil support system. 

2. Memory foam mattresses: Memory foam mattresses are known for their pressure-relieving support and contouring qualities. 

3. Latex mattresses: Latex mattresses are a popular eco-friendly option that offer a bouncy, supportive feel.

 4. Hybrid mattresses: Hybrid mattresses combine the support of an innerspring mattress with the comfort of a foam or latex mattress.

 5. Air mattresses: Air mattresses are adjustable and are often used for camping or for temporary sleeping solutions.  6. Waterbeds: Waterbeds are filled with water and offer a unique feel.

[sonukumar44]

Cheap memory foam mattresses | Fast UK Delivery | Furnishop

The Memory Foam Mattress is designed to cater to your individual needs, providing an exceptional sleep experience like no other. 

This is a soft mattress and is ideal for people who change positions during the night, and side sleepers. This is because the Memory Foam Mattress helps keep your spine aligned. If it's too firm, you may end up putting too much pressure on your hips and shoulders.

[seat-safety-switch]

Bad news, folks: the local coffee roastery has gone tits up. They moved entirely online, because "running an entire store" is ludicrously expensive unless you're selling a luxury good like memory-foam mattresses or horse clothes. All this means that I can't get my nice, cheap, local coffee anymore, because the internet is terrifying, and I refuse to pay shipping for religious reasons.

Some people are huge snobs about coffee, but not me. I'll drink whatever crankcase shit has been hanging out since 1986 in the three-gallon dispenser at the back of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Gets the humours moving just as well as any of your expensive bags of exotic foreign coffee that came out of a cat's butthole.

My money is better spent elsewhere, which is why the proprietor, Mr. Perque, would give me his special Cheap-Ass Blend, made entirely of the floor sweepings and burned garbage that he couldn't otherwise sell for human consumption. I had to sign a waiver.

Why did he sell it to me, then? He appreciated my candour about the state of the coffee industry, most likely. We also had done some work together, like the weekend when I got zooted up on what he called "Extreme Alertness" blend and put a junkyard-pulled Eaton M90 supercharger on the back of his grinder in about two hours. I still remember not being able to sleep for a few days after, during which I slap-dashed together about two dozen more abominations to mechanical engineering and/or the fantasy of a benevolent creator.

All this is to say that, Mr. Perque, I'll take a couple bags of the Cheap-Ass Blend if you will just let me know where you are hiding right now. I know you're afraid after what happened last time, but I've changed. I'll put some water in the coffee from now on.

[foldingfittedsheets]

Hi I have a mattress question! I'm trhing to get a firmer mattress, what are your feelings about IKEA mattresses? I'm considering a thin memory foam one

This question starts with another question which is how long you need a new one to last and what you need out of a bed. If the answer is more than two years this isn’t the bed for you, and unless you lay down on the floor and get good sleep a real person type I’ve met this won’t solve many problems.

IKEA beds in the US are quite low on my list, they tend not to have enough substance to give either comfort or support. So I’d really only recommend them if you’re on an incredibly tight budget and understand you’ll get a year or two of not great sleep on it before it starts to break down.

In the US they tend to be what folks call “dorm quality” which is a bed cheap enough to fill dorms with that most youthful folks will be able to tolerate due to their general vitality.

Outside the US quality varies, I looked at some bed specs for the IKEA in the Netherlands and it’s utterly different and looks way better but I’d say pass.

[delopsia]

Just imagine the way he’d act when he sleeps over at readers house who has a king or queen sized memory foam, pillow top ultra comfy bed. He’d grumble about it being too soft at first but then he ends up spending more and more nights there, claiming his spot in the dead center

I like to think that introducing Rhett to the joys of your larger bed is the equivalent of taking home a stray cat and putting it in your house. He gets spoiled very quickly and doesn't know how to go back to what he used to be okay with.

He's mumbling something about not liking the feel of the mattress, but he's immediately distracted by the fact that? His feet aren't hanging off the edge? And the sheets smell like you? And the pillow isn't overstuffed like the ones at those cheap motels are.

Next thing you know, you can't get rid of him. He doesn't wanna sleep in his own bed anymore. If you allow it, he'll drive out of his way to come sleep with you instead. He's such a snuggler, nuzzling up to you in the middle of the night and wandering after you if you scoot away. It doesn't matter where he falls asleep in the bed, he'll always wake up in the middle, with at least an arm draped around you.

[ink-n-shadow]

ian and mickey - morning after their anniversary night? something sweet with ian being happy mickey organized something for him

Morning After | Gallavich

pairing: Ian Gallagher x Mickey Milkovich

genre: mainly fluff (brief mentions of sex?)

warnings: slight mention of sexual themes but nothing explicit (unless you count some sappy love scene as a warning, then you've been warned)

word count: 456 (not proofread) 

note: i finally got to this </3 so sorry it too forever－but pls send more >:)

"Thought you forgot－you know, 'bout yesterday?"

'Course Ian did. Mickey knew that. Why else was he so bitchy during their entire work shift yesterday? Mickey was just waiting for him to admit it.

The two of them were coiled together on the brand new memory foam mattress that Ian had bought, a mattress which was haphazardly strewn onto the floor with creme-colored silk sheets stretched over the corners. By the streams of orange lighting pooling across their bare skin, it had to be the morning of March 22nd－the morning after their 3rd wedding anniversary.

It had been Mickey's plan to go all out on the wedding anniversary this time－the first wedding anniversary being spent at the Alibi and the second spent working overnight together on a security gig until 3 in the morning. This time－after they got off of their shift, of course－their anniversary involved some fancy restaurant that Ian had been eyeing ever since the couple moved into their new apartment, a bottle of (cheap) red wine, and breaking in the memory foam mattress with however many rounds of sex they had went through－Mickey had lost count.

Mickey hummed, using the arm that wasn't currently tucked under own his head to weave through Ian's hair. Ivory skin parted through red waves, the letters of Mickey's tattoos peeking out amongst fiery strands of hair. "Have I ever fucking forgot about our anniversary, Mr. Milkovich?"

When Ian failed to respond－instead just continuing to lazily trace patterns into Mickey's hipbone－Mickey huffed out a soft chuckle and a barely audible 'that's what I thought.'

It was quiet for a while after that, filled with stolen kisses and hands wandering across expanses of naked skin. Ian tore his lips from Mickey's long enough to nuzzle his forehead into his lover's cheek, eyes fluttering close. "You didn't have to do all that, y'know? That dinner date alone had to be－what, a hundred bucks?"

Mickey's scoff echoed throughout the still barren bedroom, his hand disappearing beneath Ian's chin to force him to lock eyes. "Shut up, alright?" His fingertips mapped their way back up Ian's cheekbones, ghosting down the slope of his nose before finding their way back to his chin. "I worked some overtime so I could afford it for you. 'Was just an extra weekend shift I took while you watched Franny for Deb."

It was Ian's turn to hum softly in response, eyes fluttering closed once again as Mickey's fingertips tickled along his skin. "M’lucky to have you, Mr. Gallagher. Y’know that?"

A smile stretched across Mickey's lips as Ian nuzzled further into his open palm. He couldn't help but cup the red head's face in the palms of his hands. "Uh huh, whatever. C'mere and kiss me some more, Red."

[pure-ablution]

Tips for a good night of beauty sleep?

Aromatherapy

I use aromatherapy to relax me and go to sleep at night, and I use it to wake me up and energise me in the morning. It’s a really powerful tool, especially when used over a long period of time and with high-quality products. These are my personal favourites: I use the balm on my wrists and temples, the oil in my nightly bath, and the pillow spray on my bedlinen. I suspect that I’ve essentially just Pavloved myself into good sleep but if it works, then it works.

Clear breathing

I desperately need a rhinoplasty but I can’t have one yet, so this is my makeshift solution. I tape my nose and mouth and use the magnetic nasal dilators to keep my airways as clear as possible during the night, and I have my air purifier/humidifier on 24/7. The air circulation and quality in my dorm is really not the best (the purifier shouted at me the first time I turned it on) but I’ve found that everyone sleeps and breathes better with the Dyson, my roommates and I suffer from fewer infections and colds, and the dorm is probably as good as it’s going to get.

Block out noise and light

I grew up in a small rural area where the only noise at night was the sound of the wolves, and even though it’s been almost ten years since I left, I still can’t sleep with the sound of a city in the background. I survived on cheap earplugs for a while, but eventually took myself down to the audiology clinic near me and paid up for some custom-made plugs. They make a huge difference to me and block out just the right amount of noise—I’m able to ignore my roommate crashing in at 4am, but I still wake up to the sound of my alarm. I also like sleeping in complete darkness, and our curtains are pretty bad, so buying a silk sleeping mask which cups around my eyes to protect my lashes and block out light was a wonderful investment.

Make sure you’re comfortable

If you’re a student like me, I can almost guarantee that your bed is uncomfortable. I’m obviously not sleeping on a cloud right now, but I do what I can to make my sleeping space as comfortable as possible. I researched the best mattress toppers and found this one from a company called Simba, which contains a hybrid of memory foam and springs for better support. Pure foam mattresses don’t support my joints enough, and I like a hard mattress; this topper isn’t as hard as I’d like, but it’s a significant improvement and I sleep much better. I keep my bed extremely clean, I air it out every morning and change my linen twice a week, and I make sure to have a weighted blanket and fresh pyjamas that are comfortable and breathable.

Natural sleeping aids if needed

I have a confession: I was completely addicted to cough medicine during my first year. I had a chest infection in the first month of uni, and was given something that contained a mixture of codeine and diphenhydramine. I was entirely hooked on it for the rest of the year, and couldn’t sleep without it, until I forced myself to go cold turkey over the summer. I use more natural sleeping aids now, but I think I’d still struggle without them and I wouldn’t recommend taking anything unless you really need it.

[yourtrashmom]

Cheap Mattress Online Guide

If you want to know if you need a new bed mattress, you need to observe your mattress and asses if you are still satisfied with your sleep. You are the only one to tell if you this website really need a brand new bed mattress

Of course it’s easy to know if you need a new mattress when you see that your current mattress is already worn-out, but you do not wait for your mattress to look awful before you decide that you need a new one. Sleep is very important for health and personal well-being, especially when you work all day, so having a good night’s sleep is therefore very important.

The truth is that, oftentimes, the signs that you need in order to know if it’s time to change your mattress are not visible ones. In fact, your mattress can look in its best shape and condition, but the looks of the mattress is not a valid sign that it is still in good condition, especially if you are suffering from neck, shoulder and back pain in the morning after you wake up.

If you think it’s time to change your mattress because you are longer enjoying satisfactory sleep on your mattress, or you are suffering from aches, then you could start by looking for cheap mattress online You can find a good bed shop that sells mattresses online and has good prices too.

A good quality mattress should not put too much pressure on your neck, shoulder, back and hips as you sleep. It is important that you immediately change your bed mattress if it is no longer giving sufficient support to these critical areas of your body. If you really want to know if you need to replace your mattress you need to ask yourself these following questions:

Is your mattress already seven years old?

Do you usually wake up with back, neck, shoulder and hip pain?

Are you having a hard time sleeping?

Are you experiencing dead arms and legs as you wake up?

Is your mattress already looking worn out?

Have you noticed that beds in hotels are far more comfortable than your bed?

If the answer to all of these questions is yes, then it is clear that you really need to replace your mattress immediately because it is already causing you distress. The best option for you is to find a cheap mattress online. Aside from the comfort and durability that a new mattress can offer, it should also be eco-friendly and non-toxic which are features you will get from a mattress like a memory foam mattress. With the technology used to build this kind of bed mattress, you should experience a satisfying and invigorating good night’s sleep. It is also good for children and people with allergies and asthma because this type of bed mattress prevents the accumulation of allergens and irritants in the mattress.

[deancasswitchbang]

a lilac sky

Author: Dothraki_Shieldmaiden (@dothwrites​) Artist: BoeyBite (@boeybite​) No Major Archive Warnings Tags:  Genderqueer Castiel, Gender Questioning Dean, Bisexual Dean, Panty Kink, Castiel in dresses, Dean in dresses, self-discovery, Gender Roles (and the lack thereof),  mentions of domestic/physical violence, internalized homophobia, 

Summary: 'Bisexual' is an identity that Dean Winchester is only just becoming comfortable with when he meets Castiel Novak. Fortunately, Cas is hot, smart, and enthralling enough to make Dean forget all about panicking over dating his first man.

Dating Cas, however, forces Dean to confront his own identity and fears in ways he never anticipated. Preview: Dean is saved from being trampled by his runaway thoughts by Cas’ hand gently cupping his cheek. “Dean,” Cas says, kinder than anyone has a right to be. “It’s okay. You don’t have to panic or pretend. You’re safe here.” Cas says that, but Dean can’t force himself to believe it. His father’s voice echoes in his mind, deriding Dean for sketching when he was bored, for picking a soft pink top. “Put that shit away,” John says in his memory, “you’re not some damn pansy.” Dean swallows at the kick of remembered shame and repressed anger. Never two emotions that go well together, they mingle in his gut like curdled milk on top of hot sauce. “Dean,” Cas says again, somehow managing to turn his name into a caress. His thumb sweeps over Dean’s skin. His thumb, with its bright blue, sparkly nail. It’s so smooth. Dean knows that if he were to put his lips over the painted nail that they would just skate over, smooth as silk over glass. “Do you want me to paint your nails?” Something tight and uncomfortable clenches around Dean’s throat. Over thirty years of repression proves a difficult thing to breathe around. In the end, Dean can only nod. “Okay,” Cas says, easy as if this happens every day. His hand pulls away from Dean’s face, leaving his skin cold, and Dean whines in discontent. The clinking sound of glass against glass heralds Cas’ return, however, and he sits down on the mattress. He holds two foam toe separators in his hand and gestures down towards Dean’s feet. “Do you mind?” he asks. Dean shakes his head. He breathes deep and even to control himself as Cas picks up his feet and gently works his toes between the cheap foam. It’s far from the most intimate touch they’ve shared — Cas’ fingers and cock have been up Dean’s ass for Christ’s sake — yet this feels more momentous than even that. Like Dean is taking a step and no matter what he does, he can’t undo it. Then he sees Cas’ nail polish reflected in the lamplight and thinks about how Cas navigates his life. How Cas wears what he wants, when he wants, and how he isn’t afraid of anything. How comfortable he looks as he moves around Dean’s house in his yoga pants or in one of his dresses. The simple smile on Cas’ face when Dean tells him, perfectly honestly, that he looks pretty. Dean wants… He wants to be pretty too.

POSTING BETWEEN APRIL 23rd AND MAY 6th, 2023!  

[cator99]

You can get cheap memory foam mattresses on Amazon for less than $200 usd

Commercial Break

[brazenlystrong]

Cont. [x] // @koseigu

It’s gotten to the point that they’d frequently meet up during breaks. Satoru has realized that maybe he doesn’t want to just isolate himself between or after classes, even though most of the time is spent with him napping. He’s been wondering what Shoko is up to. It seems she’s spoilt him with lots of attention lately…

Shoko's frame is enveloped in the comfort of toned arms. Due to their height difference, she would reach up to his chest, able to listen to the tiny tympanic beat coming from the steady rhythm of his heart. The built-up muscle on his athletic figure acts as a warmth-emitting cushion, nothing like the cheap bed mattress. He should buy her a memory foam mattress so she gets quality sleep at least. He’ll keep that in mind.

“ It’s my new body wash. You can try it if you’d like. ”

[kitwilsonsass]

Bed: Slab of cheap memory foam. Cannot toss and turn without waking up fully to coordinate motor function as hips have sunk into crater. My lower back is killing me dot jpeg. King. Nice sheets and bedding. 3/10.

The couch: Ugly terracotta pleather. Flat. Cold. Not even twin sized. Infinitely more sleepable than the mattress. 7/10

[foldingfittedsheets]

i have a problem that may not have a solution: university apartment mattress.

i have a memory foam topper (same one worked last year but it feels worse, so i assume the mattress is the issue), but with the topper it’s too soft and feels like it completely lacks support; without it it’s just too hard and i cannot lay comfortably. i have chronic back pain and i do not know how i will survive the year.

is there anything i can do to add more support without literally changing the mattress? it has been three days and i am already desperate.

thank you so much!

Sadly, not really. Support comes from the bottom, not the top. So the topper can’t help with back pain because it can’t add support, and the bed is it offering support if it’s rock hard.

If you’re willing to play the long game you might be able to get an accommodation for a better mattress if the school is providing a bed that a doctor rules unfit. But it would mean a lot of paperwork.

Next best look for free or cheap replacements online. College towns usually have a rotating cycle of beds that get swapped and given away.

[leslieannfierro]

I recently crashed at my old college friend’s place during a brief San Diego visit. This book was hanging around a table or shelf, and I picked it up for the look of it, but immediately felt something familiar in the author’s name. “Adam Gnade? Wasn’t that the radio station guy…that guy who gave us access to the TV studio?” [edit: No, it was not. That was a different dirty-blondish Adam with musical enthusiasms and hungover eyes.] Flashbacks of two freshman nerds broadcasting Pulp and Blues Explosion videos, interviews with random friends, and Titanic, after midnight to maybe a handful of dorm-dwellers. My friend suggested that my correct pronunciation of the name most likely affirmed the sameness of author and college radio guy [edit: It did not]. The author photo was confirmation proved memory’s false and elastic nature.  None of this is important. I managed to read the first chapter before hunger and nostalgia attacked and we went wandering down El Cajon boulevard, which in my 20+ year absence had grown slick and neon and unfamiliar, hotels and high rise apartments and restaurants pustulating the landscape, but none of this is important because we had really delicious spicy tofu larb or something like larb, and pineapple sour beers at a Thai street food place, and the next day I walked from North Park to Hillcrest to eat at Bread and Cie, where I betrayed my own nostalgia and impulse to just order a slice of fig and anise and a slice of olive bread with butter and a pot of Earl Grey, instead ordering a bougie smoked salmon sandwich and a stupid puffy cappuccino. It was fine and none of this matters, but I felt so fat with disappointment I had to walk past the old Che kid apartment above The Loft (which seemingly never tired of playing Cher’s “Life After Love,” and perhaps never has), where somebody’s friend would leave a black garbage bag full of Bread and Cie bread on the concrete patio after all his night shifts. Even though the patio now has a fancy wrought iron fence around it, I could see weird posters and candles shoved into wine bottles on the window sills, superficial signs of interesting inhabitants, and I smiled up into the tiny windows of the $150 a month closet I’d lived in, where the cats would ninja-kick through the weak wooden slats of my sliding door and once or twice relieved themselves on my bed which was not a bed, which was two stacked egg crate foam pads. Why didn’t I buy a mattress? I spent way too much of my early twenties without an actual mattress, and I can’t remember why I was that cheap. None of this is important. Especially in regards to this book, which I bought and quickly devoured, finishing it on Christmas Day in the worst place to finish a good book with this much food-nostalgia—the Hertz rental car office at Newark Airport, where I was stuck for 2 hours with only a day-old peanut butter and honey sandwich in my purse (#momlife) to sustain me. You pretty much need to be reading this book in your favorite taqueria/diner/dive with your mouth full if you don’t want to hate yourself and your situation. 

I guess what I’m really getting at, what "After Tonight, Everything Will Be Different,” is really getting at, is that all of this is important and all of this matters. These moments you live and forget about until someone like Adam Gnade revives them through familiar or relatable experiences...childhood bliss and trauma...friends of the charming dirtbag variety...rumination on films, books, albums, family, dirtbag friends, meals (especially meals) and so on. The novel (I had to check the back cover several times to confirm it was a novel, so much of it feels like memoir, like personal essay, but maybe that’s me projecting “radio guy” assumptions onto the narrator) will fuel your appetite and your nostalgia such that you’ll go meandering down your own food holes, your own sordid and beautiful youthful experiences, and that’s a hell of a thing. There’s an amazing line about nostalgia that I sadly cannot quote because I gave the book to my sister-in-law, but you should go dig it up yourself. 

“Thoroughly enjoying this.��� Quote and book photo by aforementioned sister-in-law. College photo Halloween 1997 by somebody’s roommate, Argo Hall, UCSD, cellblock K-8. 

[ladyswillmart]

Some Saturday Morning Portal Fic

Yeah, I don’t even know where this one came from. It’s called Little Blue Thing (yeah like the song, maybe I was inspired) and it just kinda sprouted up overnight like a patch of mushrooms around an old stump. It’s a meandering vignette about Chell in her Relaxation Vault (circa 1999-2000 or so), mulling over a number of loosely related things, as one does when one is lying in bed, trying (or so totally not trying) to get to sleep before Stasis Mode kicks in.

Actually, the impetus for this short fic came from a comment someone left on my last fic, which recalled a scene where Doug Rattmann met Chell on an elevator shortly before the latter went into stasis. Basically they asked: Would Chell have recognized Doug when they encountered each other again way after the end of Portal 2? And me being me, of course I had no satisfying answer. 🥴 But as a reminder I headcanon them as fraternal twins, separated at birth. So... No shipping happening here! Sorry!

Y’know I'm still not sure if I have an answer to that question yet even now, but here's me thinking about it!

~~~📺~~~

Thank you for watching Aperture Relaxation Television, an affiliate of Aperture Laboratories Access Television! This concludes today's scheduled broadcast. Our studio and transmitter facility is located in Aperture Laboratories Headquarters, sector Whiskey Newton. We broadcast a variety of live and pre-recorded programming, with all original content furnished by the Aperture Laboratories Public and Media Relations Department, whose offices are located in sector Bravo Ampere. Programming provided by our outside affiliates does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Aperture Laboratories, nor does it represent an endorsement by any individual member of our executive staff. For continuing information and entertainment, we invite you to tune in to 85.2 FM for our 24-hour radio service. From all of us at ART, we bid you a good evening and a successful stasis period.

And now, the Aperture Laboratories Corporate Anthem—

—Thwip.

With the push of a button—whose remote was tethered to the nightstand, natch—the television flickered off, leaving naught but its negative afterimage, a little blue thing floating in total darkness.

Chell reached for another button, this one positioned beside the switch for her bedside lamp, that would activate Extended Relaxation Mode after a ten minute timer. Then, she snuggled a little deeper into her bed, loudly.

Who snuggles into beds loudly…?

Beds aren't supposed to be loud but the ones in Extended Relaxation had these weird mattresses made of some kind of memory foam, and were lined on the bottom with this brittle and unusually vocal vinyl. The kind of thing used in public-facing institutions where making a bed was a calculated risk, one that involved a variety of unmentionable substances. It crinkled and smelled and forced her to reminisce about sharing cheap motel rooms with her dad and stepmom and stepsister during family vacations.

Come to think of it, they never went anywhere fun, not really. Disney World was for other kids. Hell, they couldn't even sneak a Six Flags in there every now and then. For Kid Chell, summers held the promise of nothing but that sweltering drive from Joliet to Kimberling City, MO, to visit her stepmom's mom.

So, step-grandma…?

Chell was instructed to call her "Nana" which she did, forsaking her own feelings about it to spare those of an old woman. Nana was a nice enough lady but she made a hobby of growing kumquats in her backyard and they tasted absolutely disgusting but Chell would have to choke down like a whole punnet of them every time her family came to visit. And then, one night out of a week already stuffed to bursting with tedium and cousins and indigestion, they would all load into Nana's red Aerostar and trek east to the big city—Branson!—for dinner and a show, always bland and oily and vaguely unsatisfying.

Before the ghostly knot of summers’ past could germinate in her stomach, Chell flipped onto her back and stared at the ceiling, the chiaroscuro of the room developing like an old Polaroid as her eyes adjusted to its darkness. The first thing she always did was triangulate the location of the room's Aperture Laboratories We-Don't-Know-What-It-Does-Precisely-We-Just-Know-It's-Some-Kind-Of-Detector Detector on the ceiling. Maybe it detected smoke. Probably not. But it had a tiny red light on its side that glared inexorably through the night.

This time she glared right back at it. She wanted to stay awake. Just once she wanted to feel it when Extended Relaxation Mode kicked in, to see what happened.

Kinda like trying to keep one's eyes open when sneezing.

Maybe she would succeed this time. Her brain seemed unstoppable tonight, ruminating on its own punnet of kumquats, determined to chew each one to a barely edible pulp that tasted of the body spray her classmates used to fumigate the girls' locker room after gym class.

"How did I get down here?" she asked herself (frequently, but especially now). "How did this happen? Why did this happen?"

You were looking for dad, read one kumquat.

Dad always told you not to worry about it—his job, whenever you asked him why his bosses at Aperture made him travel up to their HQ in Michigan every month, read another.

"Who's worried?" you'd always tell him, even if you did worry, even if you worried a lot, read another.

Because then one day he went up there and never came back, read another.

Aperture wouldn't say what happened to him, not exactly what happened to him.

They said it was an accident.

They said they were not responsible for it.

They said nothing more about him ever again after that.

And you said

"Bullshit!" Chell shouted her whisper into the void.

So you tried to get closer. Closer to the truth. Closer to the black hole without getting sucked in.

There is a hotly disputed theory in quantum mechanics that information entering a black hole is lost forever. Chell tried to count herself among the disbelievers; after all, even now she could see that red light on the detector on the ceiling and the little blue thing still floating around her headspace. She remembered the announcer thanking her for watching television that evening, and where Aperture Laboratories Access Television's transmitter was located. She knew that, for what it was worth, she was still Michelle [EDITOR'S NOTE: Curiously, there was once a surname printed here, but the ink has since smeared to the point of illegibility. Our sincere apologies for any narrative inconvenience this may cause].

But did anyone Out There know that she was In Here? Did anyone remember her name, who she was, what she looked like, what she liked and disliked, who she loved, who loved her?

You got a B.S. in Mathematics and a minor in Music (tuba) and a specialist certificate in Applied Scientific Modeling, her mind chewed on and on.

You turned down an offer from Black Mesa to try to get a job here at Aperture.

Aperture wouldn't hire you, but they wouldn't say why.

So you tried to become a test subject.

You got rejected, but they wouldn't say why.

"So then I… Ugh."

Chell didn't want any more kumquats. She shifted gears, flopping onto her left side this time while pulling the bed's comforter over her head. To the hand, its fabric was scratchy and deeply specific—the kind of thing with a lengthy tag sewed to one hem explaining how well it repels fire or bodily fluids while promising swift and severe justice to anyone (save the actual consumer) who would dare cut it off. To the nose, the blanket was only human and needed laundering. Meanwhile, the air conditioning unit beside the vault's approximation of a plate glass window kept chugging along, blasting out its penetrating draft and freon musk, softly rattling the vertical blinds in a sort of atonal plastic lullaby.

If she closed her eyes—she didn't dare, but if she did, it would be so easy to imagine hearing her stepsister's quiet snoring beside her, and feel the sporadic kick of a phantom foot.

Rather, she rewound to a less distant past.

This happened god knows how long ago in Real People Time, but by her own measure it was only a few bad sitcom episodes and half-eaten tubs of 100% REAL in the past—that day in mid-June, 1999, when she was taking the elevator down to the Vaults and that weird guy slipped through the doors at the last second. She remembered his face to photographic precision but the photograph was another one of those old Polaroids, kind of poorly exposed, dreamlike, obscure. He wore a white lab coat and necktie like everyone else who worked there, but he was so gangly and awkward that he looked like he was playing dress-up with Dad's stuff from work. Chell reckoned it was the bandages that made him truly memorable, all those bandages wrapped around his head but they didn't do quite enough to hide every trace of trauma, of blood or bruise.

Through another passenger, she learned his name was Douglas.

"Yeah, this happened here," was Douglas's diffident revelation about his head wound. "But it was an accident, so, no big deal."

Aperture Laboratories apparently did nothing on purpose.

Furthermore this Douglas had an uncanny quality to him. Politely paranoid, Chell recalled. He spoke softly but seemed to radiate this intense nervous energy like a rapidly decaying isotope. A real live wire, like in that one Talking Heads song:

Fa-fa-fa-fa, fa-fa-fa-fa-fa, fa, better Run, run, run, run, run, run, run away

He wasn't paranoid, he was trying to warn you about the contracts, read a sudden kumquat—the worst kind.

He was trying to warn you about the vaults, read another.

He was trying to warn you about the event horizon, read another.

He looked at you with eyes just like yours, pale and frozen furious, read the last one.

Well. One eye was pale and frozen furious. The other one he kept hidden underneath all those bandages. Assuming he still had it.

Well. Maybe he was trying to warn her about something. Maybe he was too afraid to speak of it so directly on company grounds. Maybe he too laid up at night wondering if verging too close to a black hole might put even the memory of one's existence at risk.

Well. In the end, he told her not to worry about it.

"Don't worry about it," he said. Exactly like that.

"Who's worried?" Chell muttered to herself and closed her eyes, momentarily pacified by the sensation, distant but distinct, of mutual remembrance.

[mksmart]

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