brown carpet by chris. the carpet was brown shag, probably new in the 70s or 80s. you could tell it was old, but it had held up well. the padding beneath it had been completely worn down in most areas of the house so that it felt like the carpet was just lying on top of the bare wood. "it's going to be replaced," she said. she had wanted new carpet for a decade, and for some reason, now was the time she was demanding it. "why?" he said. he loved the carpet. "it's old, it smells, it's hard, it's disgusting." she spat in contempt on the carpet as she said this. arrangements were made and the carpet was to be put in the next week. for the next week he slept on the carpet, telling it how much he'd appreciated it, how much he didn't want it to leave. he took pictures with it, trying to smile but unable to hide his sorrow. he wept for the loss of the carpet. when the time came for the new carpet to be installed he left the house. he couldn't bare watching as the carpet men tore and gutted his beloved carpet and threw it into the back of a truck en route to a place he didn't even want to consider as a possible grave for the soft brown pieces. when he came back white carpet had been put in its place, all over the house, upstairs and down. it was soft under his feet and slightly reminded him of the brown carpet, but this new carpet's shag was shorter than the old. he ignored it and wept day after day for the loss of his beloved. one night he came home and sullenly trudged up his newly carpeted stairs. he couldn't feel the edges of the boards on the stairs because of the new padding underneath the carpet, and he yearned to feel them again. when he got to the top step something caught his eye: a brown carpet fiber. he picked at it to see if it had just been tracked in or dropped, but it was stuck fast. she came up behind him. "what are you looking at?" she asked. she leaned down next to him. "oh, uh...nothing," he stammered. she squinted and looked at the carpet. "it's brown! brown! what's brown there for!" "no, i...it's..." she ran into her room and brought a pair of scissors, cutting the brown carpet fiber at its base. she threw it in the trash and slammed her door. he looked around for more brown carpet fibers, but he found none. he decided to label the found fiber a fluke. he woke up the next morning to screams. he jumped from his bed and ran out the door. brown carpet fibers littered the whole stairs and spilled into the hallway. she was on her hands and knees first cutting them out, then simply ripping them out. "you did this didn't you?" she screamed at him. "how could i have?" he asked. she grimaced at him and went back to work, but looking down she saw spots of blood where she had pulled the brown fibers. the blood was staining the new carpet. she roared and got bleach and went to work. she got every last brown fiber and bleached every last bloodstain by midnight and she went to bed, but the next morning was no better. the whole house was now littered with the brown fibers, and she fainted at the site of them. more brown carpet fibers kept appearing, and he was ecstatic. he laid on them as they formed a somewhat hard but still comforting bed for him, and by noon the next day all the brown carpet had returned.

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