Lust, Envy, Greed and the Perfect Bed

There is a bed that I covet. It tempts me daily. It calls out from the apartment across the street, and I swear it whispers my name. I swear it teases me with persuasive words. Every day it invites me: “Come and lie down; rest your weary self,” it says, “and I will envelop you in my comfort.” Sometimes it tempts me in another language, dreamy and enticing. A little on the poetic side, perhaps, but this bed makes me want to speak in symbols, in rhythms and in prose.

It stares at me, with stunning queen-size eyes and a smooth feather-topped skin. With its rich, dark brown headboard and striking frame, strong and unfaltering, it pulls me in and I want nothing more than to run to it, climb under its covers, rest my head on its soft, luxurious pillows and stay there, day after day, in its security and warmth.

There is no doubt about it. I am in love with this bed.

There is only one problem. Well, two. Two panes of glass separate me from this bed. It is not mine to have; it does not belong to me. No matter how much I want this bed, how much I want to make it mine, there will always be an obstruction. This bed can never be mine. Unless I smash through glass and shatter my surroundings (which on some days I feel like doing), I will never get to this bed. But I would do anything for just one full day… one long, uninterrupted full day and night… to roll around on this bed, to fall asleep in this bed, to dream the sweetest dreams in this bed.

I can’t get this bed out of my head. This bed shows up in my dreams, sometimes these dreams wake me, and I have to leave my own bedroom, walk out to the living room, and fight the urge to crash through all necessary windows to get what I covet.

You see, this bed is perfect.

I don’t know who this bed belongs to. In fact, I have never seen anybody in the apartment. Some days I think it was placed there for a reason, right in front of me, serving as some kind of test. A test of seduction. A test that kills me some times, because I know I will never win. A lesson in patience perhaps, or more likely, a lesson in understanding that I can’t always get what I want.

I think I am breaking at least three of the seven deadly sins.

Lust: My excessive thoughts and desires are basic signs of this. Guilty.

Envy: My insatiable desire for someone else’s goods. Guilty.

Greed: I don’t need this bed, but I really really, really want it. Guilty.

You may be thinking I am taking this a little too far. It’s just a bed in the grand scheme of things, right? Wrong. There is no other bed like this. And no matter how great my own bed is, and no matter how comfortable I am there, I will always wonder whether I will get the chance – just once – to spend an entire night and day in this perfect, flawless, beautiful bed.

But for now, all I can do is hold onto the dreams in which this bed shows up. Close my eyes and imagine myself beneath its covers. Listen to it whisper my name and hope that some day, some way, I will find myself there… just the bed and me… and make this dream my reality.