This might be true of life and love - yes - but, unfortunately, it's also true of my futon: a futon that is quite literally, physically and not in the slightest bit metaphorically covered in mould.
I had no idea. Not even the faintest inkling. I've been happily sleeping inches away from a green, wet, festering layer of something that smells not very nice: all the while congratulating myself on the nice, tidy state of my flat and the fact that I now do my washing up at least every other day. Worse - and this is truly disgusting - it's a mould that must have grown from the steam from my showers, the sweat from my nightmares, the damp from my breath and the vapour from my hideous attempts at cooking: in short, it's my mould. Mould grown from me. And I've been rolling around on top of it, wondering why all was not right with the world. Indeed, I wouldn't have found it at all if I hadn't decided to do a Christmas Clean and sweep 'under my bed'; something I've never done before, and wouldn't have thought about if I hadn't spilled a cup of coffee under there a couple of days ago. (I once witnessed my father vacuuming around a sock: I was not brought up to clean properly.)
Everything suddenly makes sense. I've been falling asleep and writing and waking up on a rotten bed; I've been visiting Onsens and scrubbing myself red raw and squeaky clean, and then putting on my pyjamas and lying on top of mould. I've made dreams on a foundation of something green and slimy: how could I expect any of them to come true?
Of course, it turns out - now that I've done a little research - that a Japanese futon is not a western mattress: it needs tatami mats (which I don't have), and to be aired daily (which I don't do), and to be put away in cupboards during the day (which I don't have, or do). A couple of months of just changing the bedding, apparently, leaves you with some kind of botanical garden in your bedroom; one that means you have to spend the night on the wooden floor with a blanket, because you've now got nothing else to sleep on.
At least it's forced me to do what I may never otherwise have done: to scrub every inch of my flat, instead of just waving a broom at the centre parts of it. It's ensured that I will never again cat lick my flat, and consider it clean. And - even more importantly - it's made sure that this time, it really is a fresh start when I wake up tomorrow morning. And that the next time I dream, it's going to be on something that doesn't have rot in the middle of it.
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