The Cabin - Personal Essay

The bedroom was as shabby as the rest of the cabin and very uncomfortable. I laid down on the bed but found it difficult to sleep. It was miserable and the mattress made noises. After a while, I discovered bugs. Just lying there was more than I could stand, so I tried to kill as many as I could find.

        As I surveyed my surroundings, I saw how the shutters filled their squares of window and were held shut with strings and nails The rest of the room contained crevices in the walls, stuffed with hemp, rags, newsprint, and raw cotton stained with large damp spots and rivulets on the floor seeming to reflect the walls that had streams and crooked wetness abounding. The air contained a wetness and chill that made me shiver.

        I sat on the edge of the bed, turned out the lamp, and laid back along the outside of the covers. After a couple of minutes, I got up, stripped, and slid in between the sheets. The bedding was saturated and full of chill. The sheets were at the same time coarse and almost slimily or sticky soft, much the same material flour sacks are made of. There was a ridged seam down the middle. I could feel the thinness and the lumpiness of the mattress and the weakness of the springs. The mattress was rustling noisily if I turned or contracted my body. Unfortunately, the pillow was hard, thin, and noisy, and smelled like acid and new blood; the pillowcase seemed to crawl at my cheek. I touched it with my lips. It felt a little like cotton candy. There was an odor something like that of old moist stacks of newspaper.

        Suddenly, I began to feel sharp little piercings and crawling all along the surface of my body. I was not surprised. I had heard that pine is full of bugs anyhow. I felt places growing on me and scratched at them, and they became unmistakable bedbug bites. To lie there naked feeling whole regiments of them gnawing at me, knowing that I must be imagining two more for every one, became more unpleasant than I could stand. I struck a match and a half-dozen broke

along my pillow. I caught two, killed them and smelled their odd rankness. They were full of my blood. I struck another match and spread back the cover. They rambled off by the dozens. I got out of bed, lit the lamp and killed dozens more. Scouring around for more bugs, I found fleas and along the seams of the pillow and mattress, small gray translucent brittle insects I supposed were lice…