My in-laws want our bed, but not the mattress. I looked for a charity to take it, but the Salvos’ number was wrong in the phone book, St Vincent’s wasn’t listed and the Brotherhood of St Laurence laughed at the idea of coming around that day to pick it up, so I switched to ‘Little Engine That Could’ mode and got it out of the flat and down the stairs from the third floor. Reaching the bottom, I was so bushed that I couldn’t push it down the drive. I thought about how I’d like to lie down. And realised I had a mattress. So I put it down in the driveway and lay on it, in the sun, under a tree. My shirt rucked up and the warm sun and a bit of a breeze alternated in warming and cooling my bare skin. Clouds migrated across the forget-me-not blue sky. I could have stayed there a long time. But the clouds massed over the sun, and by then I had enough energy to push the mattress out to the nature strip. I said a formal goodbye. I’ve thrown out a lot of stuff in these few weeks but the mattress was the only thing I’ve felt sentimental about. A mattress supports you through the mystery and vulnerability of sleep, through sex and pillow talk and lazy Sunday mornings and private crying. I felt guilty about throwing it out and was glad me and it had those last moments together in the driveway. Dirtied, and damaged from scraping over the bricks in the stairwell, it was nevertheless gone by evening, taken, like things always get taken around here when you leave them out. So now it will be a witness to someone else’s night thoughts and erotic life.