I have lived three decades on this cold, cursed rock, and not once have I experienced the pleasure of a fresh new mattress.
I have lived my days and nights not unlike a medieval peasant, laying my head on whatever imperfect surface it may find at day’s end.
My entire life has been lived in ignorance. Every mattress I have owned has been first slept on by another. For a long time, I thought this was fine. Ah, how we grow to love the shadows in Monsieur Plato’s cave.
Enlightenment, like death, like love, often comes when you are least prepared, in forms you may never have imagined.
For me, enlightenment came in a box.
When you gaze upon the image above, imagine birds chirping, children laughing. A distant yet distinct church choir. Good, now keep that in your head as you read the rest of this screed.
The thing comes wrapped much like a scroll bearing ancient knowledge. Once you free it from its prison it quickly begins to uncontort itself, as if possessed. Arching and writhing in ways unholy. One cannot look away.
The entire ritual lasts a minimum of five hours, but to be safe I kept it out overnight.
There it is. The Comfort Premium V2 Queen. Beautiful.
I spent day one drinking nothing but whisky and shouting things at people on the internet I will never meet. I listened to the entire Interstellar soundtrack four times over and drew pictures of far-off hills. I cartwheeled and dreamed a nightmare that flowed onto reality that turned to a dream once more — throughout it all my back was perfectly supported thanks to the firm yet comfortable foam of Emma.
One Saturday evening, with Melbourne too cold and biting to invite adventure, my girlfriend and I stayed in. With the cold wind hitting the windows hard it was the perfect time to bring our Emma to the living room.
It is here we tested it vigorously in a variety of manners. It passed all assessments, experiments, and evaluations with colours that flew.
Nature has many laws, one being a mattress in a living room does not stay bare for long. Just as sure as two nuclei colliding at speed in Geneva will cause a small nuclear reaction, a mattress in a living room will become a base for a fort.
Good thing we still had the box. In construction, extra fortification is always welcome.
As the days turned to weeks, I began to notice the many benefits of my Emma. Her seven carefully engineered layers each played their part.
The top cover, a breathable fabric keeps the sleep surface cool and crisp. Beneath this lies a layer of open-pore foam, which sits atop a memory foam layer that contours to your body like a calm river flowing around stones. Below that are two more types of foam, one firm and supportive, the other soft and comforting.
At the core, individually wrapped pocket springs provide a stable foundation minimising motion transfer yet still giving the perfect bounce one craves when jumping on the bed. Together, these layers form to make Emma, who now firmly lives in my mind among elite layered things, taking the mantle along lasagna, Shrek, and tiramisu.
As a light sleeper, I’ve always been envious of my girlfriend’s ability to slumber undisturbed. A great war between man and machine could erupt causing giant explosions in all major cities, our balcony could crumple and roof could cave in and she’d still sleep through it all. I, on the other hand, am spurred right up when a penny drops in Istanbul. This often means that at odd hours I’m awake reading a book, or on the PublicFreakout subreddit.
Being awake means doing that thing that sleeping people tend not to do, that is, move around a tad. Though my partner can sleep through it, I still feel aware of my movements and try to keep them to a minimum. I was taught not to wake a sleeping beast. With Emma, I have no such concerns. The mattress lets me move around to my heart’s content while not affecting the other side.
Before Emma, I’d sometimes wake with a stiff upper back, a byproduct of stomach sleeping — a bad habit I’ll probably never break. Now, thanks to the way the foam shifts around and hugs my body, that stiffness is a distant memory.
Before I met Emma, I did not know life could be this way. I knew no other way.
Now I know.
I know what it is to experience Peak Mattress.
And I’m never going back.
If you’d like to sleep with Emma, head to her website. I hear she’s on sale.
Main Image: The Simpsons
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