The Future, Tense

Rayburn is about to wake up. He will interrupt the dream about his talking shoes.

“We need to be polished,” they will say.

To which he will respond, “But I don’t have the right color of shoe polish.”

The shoes will open their mouths to respond to this when Rayburn will feel Louise getting out of the bed, and this will break his concentration, especially since it will be so close to the time he usually wakes up, and subconsciously he won’t really like that his subconscious will be telling him he should polish his shoes, especially since his shoes will sound just like his mother. And will sort of look like her too, the way the laces dangle down her cheeks like strands of hair that have not been washed in a while.

Rayburn is about to sit up. He will hear Louise, who will be in the bathroom, flushing the toilet, after which she will go to the kitchen to fix herself a cup of instant coffee using hot water from the instant hot water tap that Rayburn will be so proud to remember that he installed when he hears it. He will realize, subconsciously, that the fact that Louise will be leaving the bathroom will mean that she will no longer be in the bathroom and that he will be able to go in and pee without pissing her off like he would if he were to pee while she were in the bathroom.

Rayburn is about to stand up. Rayburn is about to walk to the bathroom door which he will find partially open already. Rayburn is about to drop the trousers of his pyjamas and sit on the toilet. He will pee sitting down so he will not make the splatters that will piss Louise off if she finds them, and also because he will find sitting more comfortable and he will be able to sort of drift halfway back to sleep because he won’t have to pay so much attention to standing up and to where the stream will be going since it won’t matter because his thing will be below the rim, and the stream will be able to go anywhere it wants and any splatters will wash away in the flush.

Rayburn is about to feel his bladder emptying, and his insides will sort of settle down into the space that will be vacated by all that stored up water, and as his insides settle his mind will also settle back into the dream about the shoes.

Rayburn is about to feel cranky because the shoes are about to start yapping at him even though he is about to think that he will dream about the girl, whose image is about to come into his mind, who he will think is pretty cute, even though he will realize that if Louise were to come into the bathroom to find him sitting on the toilet half asleep and dreaming about subjects that will be obvious from the state his thing will be in, because he is about to reach down and shake off, and the feeling will make a subconscious connection with the memory of the feeling he will get when he sees her.

Rayburn is about to get up. He is about to hear Louise returning from the kitchen with her cup of coffee, that she will put on the counter next to her not-too-neatly arranged collection of bottles and jars of condiments, so that she will be able to drink her coffee while she slowly but rather negligently puts on her makeup. Rayburn will remember the last time Louise came in to find him sitting there half asleep on the toilet.
“Are you still here,” she will say, with a sleepy but slightly disgusted look that will become more intense when Rayburn stands up and she will unavoidably see his thing before he will be able to pull up his pyjama trousers to cover it.

“Sorry,” he will say.

And as she is about to turn away she will raise one corner of her upper lip in a sort of gesture of disdain and resignation. And she will turn to the counter and give Rayburn the distinct impression of an immovable object so he will feel he shouldn’t ask her to move over to let him wash his hands in the bathroom sink.

Rayburn is about to turn on the hot water tap in the kitchen sink so he can wash his hands. After he washes his hands, and dries them on his pyjama trousers because he will not see the kitchen towel hanging on the hook over the sink in front of him, because that is where Louise likes to put it and because Rayburn will not be able to adjust his usual expectation that the towel will be hanging from the door of the refrigerator, he will make himself a cup of instant coffee using hot water from the instant hot water tap that he will be so proud to install after the Mr. Coffee finally goes all the way onto the blink and Louise will throw the whole thing in the trash because she will finally have enough of Rayburn’s unsuccessful attempts to fix it. He will take his cup of instant coffee back to the bedroom where he will set it on the night stand and sit on the bed and drink it slowly while he is waiting for Louise, who will be in the bathroom for at least ten more minutes, to leave the bathroom, after which he will pick up his half-empty cup of mostly cold now coffee and go into the bathroom and shave. He will drift halfway back into sleep, and the image of the girl will come into his mind, and he will feel that feeling, and his thing, and the girl will be wearing shoes that remind him of his mother, with strands of hair that needs to be washed hanging in her face like shoe laces, and the shoes will start to tell him that they need to be polished, and the feeling will fade, and his thing, and the girl, and Louise in the bathroom, and Rayburn is about to wake up.