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Considerations on Building a Fort

Blackberries were on sale at the local supermarket. Paired with a set of vanilla wafers in an old mini casserole dish, they make perfect living room camping food. I’ve been diagnosed with Streptococcal pharyngitis and therefore confined away from the living world for a few days. I’m sleeping next to the television, watching Supernatural, considering alpha males and drinking water from a bendy straw cup. I’ve got enough blankets and couch cushions and pillows to build myself a fort.

I’m a small spaces kind of person. As a kid I would pack a bag and ride out thunderstorms under the living room coffee table. When I got older, I’d sit under my desk to do my homework instead of at it. I sleep in the corner of the bed and the wall, I sleep with my face in the crook of my arm. I sit holding myself, hunched over. Small. Compact. Not taking up too much space.

I imagine a fort would go well in the make-pretend Patrick Wolf woodland cottage I hope to live in one day. A small, two floor thing with a slanted roof and windowboxes for flowers. Right in the living room, I’d build a fort on the weekends and watch Hong Kong action films and write short stories. It’s the sort of thing I dream about constantly. When I’m pushing my mind away from the dark city streets and overcrowded, oppressive skyscrapers that it usually inhabits.

For now, though, I’d settle for these light tan couch cushions stacked up high and a light white blanket draped across the top. A stack of comic books and some old anime looping on the television. Someone to sit next to and to eat warm chocolate chip cookies with. The easily attainable. The fort is like a state of mind. The place no one can get you while you listen to 90′s rap music and sing along with the parts you can remember.

The world is so scary sometimes, so tiring sometimes.
A fort is like running away and sometimes, we all have to do that.

Take three deep breaths, chew on blackberries and settle in.