The Mattress Dust Mite

October 20, 2024

I had only just managed to fall asleep because of a strange itch I felt all over my body. I'd been feeling it for 4 years. I'd almost gotten used to it.

Psst, psst, I suddenly hear from somewhere in my dreams.
Who's there? I ask, curious.
Here, it's me, the mattress dust mite.
Get out of here, I'm allergic to you! You make me ill!
I knooow! But it's not my fault, it's yours! the little thing answers cheekily.
Mine? Is it my fault that I was born? I answer, furious now.
It's not my fault that I was born either, the tiny spider says to me.

I sat there a moment to think. Whenever I get worked up over various things, my mum tells me to stay calm and clear my head a little, to think about what's bothering me. Basically, what was bothering me was the itch, and the itch was caused, as my mum explained to me, by some tiny spiders attacking my skin. I had never come face to face with this tiny spider before, and only now did I have the chance to crush it under my heel and destroy it. But if I killed this one, didn't it have brothers? Cousins? Other relatives who would want to take revenge?

Hey, what's your name? I ask him.
My name is Scărpinescu!
Here's the thing, Scărpinescu, you're ruining my life!
Me?
Yes, yes, you. My sleep isn't sleep anymore, my skin isn't skin anymore, and my life isn't life anymore!
But, Tudor...
No "buts", I cut him off, look, here, here, here, I say, pointing my finger at my arms, my thighs, my shoulders, my legs, all these are scratch marks you've caused! And that's not nice! Once I couldn't breathe at all, only the doctors could give me oxygen so I'd come around, my mum was crying. Every night she'd get upset that, instead of sleeping, I kept asking her to put cream on me again and again. That's not nice! I'm cross with you!
Tudor, that's exactly why I've come now, the dust mite answers sadly, so sadly that I no longer felt like scolding him.. I felt a little guilty for his sadness.
Go on, tell me!
The day before yesterday, your mum killed my parents with the mite spray. They were sitting there peacefully, and they'd sent me off to fetch some fluff from the pillows in your parents' room. When I came back, there wasn't a trace of them. We didn't even have a home anymore. Everything was destroyed.
Well... my mum does spread that stuff around because of me, it's true!
Yes, because of you, but what about us?

Then a very strange feeling came over me, like the one from the day I hit my cousin and she fell onto the glass table and broke it. A guilt so heavy that it had tied a knot in my throat, a knot I was struggling, with great difficulty, to swallow.

- I'm sorry, I tell him.

- And I'm sorry that I make you ill. Look, a few days ago I got a letter from my uncle in Brașov. It said there that he's well and that they're all healthy, that on these warm days they go out to the beach, and he also said that the family they live with has put up a sort of roof for them.

- A roof?

- Yes, a cover that wraps around the mattress. They live in the mattress, happy, while the people lie on top of the cover, just as happy.

- A cover, you say?

Yes.

Bang, I'm suddenly woken by a loud thud! I'd fallen out of bed. I run to my mum's room and throw myself into her arms. I hold her tight.

- Scărpinescu, the family, the cover, I tell her.

Tudor, calm down! It was only a dream!
No, it wasn't a dream! We're killing them, stop using that stuff, we're killing them!
Killing who, sweetheart?
The dust mites! I answer, and my mum takes me in her arms and begins to stroke me, I calm down at once and fall back asleep. Her caresses always make me fall asleep.

The next day, bright and early, my mum was sitting with the laptop in front of her, peacefully sipping her coffee, brimming with white, fluffy foam. I went over to her and hugged her.