I collapsed onto her white cassimere sweater, her white soft sweater felt like heaven against my sore and battered muscles. I looked over at monolithic sister and sighed in frustration. I pictured myself being able to hop from pile to pile but that fantasy had gone out to window. I now wondered if I could even make it to her nightstand by morning. That is when another thought crept into my head. A thought I really should have had before. How was I going to climb this nightstand? It was huge in comparison to my now diminutive size.  

I cursed under my breath as a possibly fatal flaw in my plan had come about. I turned my head slightly to look at the nightstand in the far off distance. It looked miles upon miles away. It was near the outer age of my range of perception. I found looking at the nightstand was a lot like looking at a distant mountaintop, it was hazy and there was nothing to focus on. Everything blurred together in the general shape of the nightstand.

I spent a lot of time hymning and hawing over what to do. I finally decided to continue with the plan I originally had. If nothing else it was a plan, and having some kind of plan is better then just aimlessly wandering hoping to find some way to magically reverse the situation I am in somehow. I guess I had better continue on. I told myself.

            As I stood up, I could feel that my muscles had tightened and my body had grown stiff. I stretched a little and looked up at the piles of clothes. I found myself standing on a white cassimere sweater, which made up the base of this pile that was made up of multitude of clothes, which stretched up into the sky. It was a sickening sight to say the least. It was not sickening in the respect of gross those are dirty clothes, but more along the lines of the fact that this pile of clothing is now so much taller then me. It dominates my immediate field of vision.

            I gulped as I looked up at mountainous pile of clothing. I knew I was going to have to climb this pile. As I looked at my situation, I was in a bad spot. I had a plan but no clue how to execute it. I needed some intelligence. If I climb to the top I should be able to see the lay of the land, and figure out not only what route to take, but also which way should be the fastest.

            I took another deep breath and started walking towards the pile. I could feel my feet sinking into her soft white sweater with my every step. Each one of those steps took me closer to the mountain. I found my mind begin to ease the more I thought of the pile of clothing as mountain. It made the situation seem more rational. I was going to climb this mountain to get directions. I could wrap my head around that easier then I am going to climb my younger sisters pile of dirty laundry so that I can navigate her messy bedroom easier, in hopes of reaching her nightstand before morning.

            After a longer walk then I had imagined when I decided to climb the mountain, I finally reached the base. I slowly looked from right to left for a good place to begin. What looked like a quarter mile down from where I was looked to be a good location to begin. There was a sock, which was bent and ruffled a bit.

            I jogged down to the sock and started my ascent. The ridges created by how my sister had dropped the sock made it an easy place to climb. I could easily grab onto the next ridge. I continued to climb from ridge to ridge of the sock until I reached a fold in a white cotton shirt. I pulled on the fold of the shirt a bit and it seemed secure. I took a deep breath and pulled myself up. The fold in the shirt had a lot more give then the sock did. I found myself hurrying onto the next fold rather quickly. I reached about halfway when I found the white cotton fabric changing into a dark black. I tilted my head a bit and looked at the black coloring. The black I was on was only but a horizontal strip, which connected to two outer black stripes that went up at an angle until they met. To the right of me was long black stripe that went up straight into the air, but towards the top two strips went off to right more. The word gap popped into my head. I was on the letter A and next to me was the letter P. This had to be one of sisters gap t-shirts.

            I was about to continue with my climb when I felt mountain begin to shake a little. This caused me to look down. I gulped and clung to the t-shirt tightly at the sight of how far up I really was. A drop from here might be fatal, but it would definitely injure me.

            I was looking around to seeing where my sister could possibly be going, and hoping that she wasn’t heading my way when I heard the door open up.

            “Honey, have you seen your brother? He was up in his room, but I don’t see him now and his car his still here.” My mom’s voice rumbled across the room, everything started to shake again, I could feel the fold in the shirt I was clinging too begin to move. I begun to madly climb upwards faster.

            “I haven’t seen him all night.” My sister replied as the shaking worsened by the second. New folds were now forming and disappearing by the second as I continued my ascent. As I made it to the top of the shirt, I found a small crawlspace between the shirt and whatever piece of denim clothing was above me. I pulled myself into the crawl space as I braced myself against both walls. As I looked out at the room, I could see my mother walking right towards the pile. I screamed for my mother hoping she would somehow hear me.

            “Where could that boy be? It’s not like him to not say anything when he goes out, but he’s old enough to take care of himself now I guess.” The voices of my mother and sister were loud and deafening. There voices boomed throughout the room like thunder in the sky. I called for my mother one last time before she turned and left the room.

            I sat in this small cave for a few minutes after she left. My heart was still racing. I could not believe how close I had come to death. One of those folds disappearing a second too soon and I could have been nothing but a stain on a shirt. Well lets just climb this, see where to go and get back to the much safer floor, or at least I thought it was safer. I was still naïve and had not learned of the dangers of that this new world brings.