Phantom Limb

My grandfather, a master carpenter, used to warn me about 'phantom timber.' He claimed, 'If you amputate a part of a structure, the wood doesn't forget. A table with a cut leg still leans on the ghost of it. The memory of the weight remains.' I dismissed it as folklore until I rented this cramped studio in the city. The landlord was surprisingly generous, providing a twin bed stacked with three thick mattresses. But I never slept well. Every night, I suffered from terrifying sleep paralysis. I’d wake up gasping, feeling a suffocating, cold weight crushing my chest, pressing me deep into the bedding. This morning, while changing the sheets, my hand grazed the top of the bedpost. It wasn't smooth varnish. It was raw, splintered wood. I peeled back the sheet to reveal four jagged, freshly sawed-off stumps. As I stared at the mutilated frame, my grandfather’s warning turned my blood to ice. I finally understood why the air above me felt so heavy. The bed used to be taller. And whatever occupied the space above me... hadn't left.