SHORT STORY THE DUVET COVER
THE DUVET COVER
Automatic traslation from the original story in Spanish. Not checked manually
Sweat beaded on Ricardo’s forehead. Before him lay a quilted comforter made into a ball and a duvet cover that seemed to mock him with its perfect symmetry. He’d tried everything to get it inside: the “bear hug” technique, the “human torpedo” technique, he’d even considered invoking the Norse gods to lend him a hand (or six). Nothing worked.
“I don’t understand,” he thought to himself, “how can they say the Norse are smarter? With how easy it is to use sheets and blankets… well, let’s bother our neighbours with these atrocious inventions… I have no choice but to keep trying.”
First, the attempt to tuck the cover inside out. An epic failure. The sheet turned into a monster of fabric that wrapped him like a mummy, leaving him feeling like he was inside a giant, airless cocoon. Then, the “one arm at a time” method. One arm made it through successfully, but the other got caught in a swirl of fabric, as if he’d fallen into a padded black hole.
Ricardo gasped, his face red as a tomato. He looked at the duvet cover, then around, searching for a solution. He saw the vacuum cleaner. A brilliant idea, or so he thought in his desperation.
He turned on the vacuum cleaner, held it to the opening in the duvet cover, and… whoosh! The vacuum sucked the duvet cover into a gigantic mess that only managed to drag it around the room. Ricardo, defeated, sat on the floor, surrounded by the duvet, while the duvet cover, now an ethereal and vengeful being, laughed at him from the floor. In the end, he called his mother. She did it in two minutes. Poor Ricardo, no matter how hard he looked, couldn’t figure out how she’d done it.