The woman is right. I won't walk to the curb on my own and thumb a ride to the dump. I will lean right here, precariously against the bedroom wall, and hamper her way as she dresses the new mattress with crisp, clean linens. The man will come for me in his own time-not in response to her wash-and-wear sarcasm, not in response to her stomping and sighs. He will come when the Giants are down, when the leaf blower dies, when the children are spun and dizzy. He will come when her morning is done, and he will ask her to help him discard me.

"It's bulkier than the new one. I don't think it will fit down the stairs." He hangs on the doorframe, and a white belly pops out of his graying team jersey.

"Why? Has it gained weight since we brought it up here?" the woman asks. She sits stiffly on the new mattress that hasn't learned how to hold her.

He ignores her question and stares at me. "I'll need you to help me maneuver it. Why don't we just do it after lunch?"

"That's fine," she responds, releasing a breath that blows the tendrils of my frayed edges. "It's an eyesore, and I'm tired of tripping over it. It has to go, today."

They close the door and leave me behind. I listen to their footsteps descending. I wait to hear their muffled chatter in the kitchen below. I wait to hear the banging of cabinets and the rattle of the silverware drawer. I wait to hear the call for the children to come inside. I wait until they are settled, and then I allow myself to look in the mirror across the room.

The woman is right. I am stained and have lost my shape. I am drawn and soft where I was once tight and firm. I am knotty and forgiving, where I was once smooth and relentless. The new mattress stretches out before me like a fresh playing field-yards unmarred. My hills slump and slouch into valleys-spoiled turf, soiled territory.

I am where they shed sweat, blood, and skin, where they spilled champagne and unborn children. I am where they burped and nursed the ones that lived. My coils are rusted veins, dried streams of milk, saliva, and tears.

On the occasional night the man was away, the children skipped their baths and climbed into me with the woman. They watched Disney movies in the dark and ate buttered popcorn from burnt paper bags. They wiped their fingers on my sheets and my skin absorbed the grease. They dripped blue raspberry syrup from freezer pops and let it slide down their arms, off their elbows, into my veins. Their chubby feet were grainy and smelled of cut grass and vinegar. The woman laughed loudly at the animation, and the children shushed her.

When the man found himself alone, the woman and children had gone to visit family on her side. He clipped his toenails on me and watched wildlife documentaries. He picked at cold, fried chicken as a lion rendered a zebra carcass unrecognizable. He burped loudly and fell asleep watching David Letterman. I shushed the studio audience.

Together, they usually went straight to bed-no children, no chicken, no Disney animation. The man sunk into my deeper side; the woman slowly rolled in toward him. When they finally touched it was by their own design, and I woke to find them loosely entwined.

Then there were nights when they didn't sleep, and they whispered to each other, and they whispered to themselves:

I'm afraid he's going to die.
            He'll be fine.

But I think, sometimes, that he needs to die. Is that horrible? It is, isn't it?

I'm going to quit.
            You'll be fine. We'll be fine.
            I'm going to quit.
            I know.

What if it isn't good news?
            We'll get through it together.

I'm sorry.

I know.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I know.

Now, I look at myself in the mirror and see what they see. I turn away and wonder if souls discard their bodies with the same disdain and sense of urgency. I want to take one last look, but I don't have the heart. Instead, I stare at the new mattress and wait. The woman is right.

Michele Alouf (VA) has been a finalist in the Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award competition.