A Ragamuffin's Dream (Part 1, by Claudia Mair Burney)

Almost midnight. Dark.

I'm entangled in wrinkled sheets, slowly being strangled by an obscenely cheap pink burial cloth. The brown comforter I kicked to the floor looks as lonely as a mound of dirt. It's the color of dead leaves. Blush-colored blossoms, void of scent, skitter across its surface. [...]