You wake in a state of discomfort as though from a nightmare. Something is wrong. You are lying in a broad bed in a space you do not know. Half-opening your eyes, you see it. It may be in the suite of an old hotel, a guest room at a friends on one of your travels, possibly a new residence for yourself to which you have not yet adapted. You search within yourself for orientation. In this darkness you do not know, something has called you from the dark ocean of sleep into the marshy world of half-waking. You have been drifting in that state for so long that it seems like an Odyssey of its own. You are so tired that you want to ignore it all and collapse back into sleep. But by the time you realize it, like a loyal watchdog, a guardian angel, or a warning from a lost elder, your inner self has sounded the alarm and is urgently trying to call you to action. Something in what should be tomb-still space is moving. This is no dream. In one of the dim rooms outside your open door, something sharp and hard parades erratically upon hard bare floors. Like a sadistic jailer rattling the keys of your cell or a carnivorous predator for whom fear seasons the repast, whatever it is is making no game about concealing itself. Things are too far on, you realize, to bother with that. What is this sound? Its random rat-a-tat, punctuated by spells of curious scratching and then silence, is more taunt than direct challenge, and gives no hint as to its form or even number. You envision rats playing tug-of-war with a dead man’s grisly femur; the heavy claws of a massive, venomous arachnid–a human-sized Shelob–beginning its foray into your room; a pair of Grateful Dead-style apparitions doing a skeletal break-dance on hard wood floors. Its percussive prancing draws and nears your open door, then goes still. Without giving warning of your wakefulness–any edge you have is precious!–you hold motionless and seek within yourself. What do you remember of your circumstances? You roll your eyes and see windows around you. How high up is the room? Can you reach and bolt the door, exit a window, and find a lighted street nearby with a running chance? What do you remember of the room? Is there a weapon handy? Is there any hafty blunt instrument that could be used for one, anything to give you a sense of hope? Or is it too late for that? How close is it? And then you remember... Ah, yes, I have cats. In the morning I find that Fortnight has stalked, ambushed, and completely taken apart one of the felt-covered wooden coat-hangers that must have once been in my grandmother’s closet, and had been shoving it about the oak-floored living room and among the chairlegs most of the night. Where did she even find it? It must have been in a box somewhere.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 17:11:44 +0000
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