I Remain Unconvinced (Part 1)

I’m alone, if only for a few minutes. I think I can handle it.

I put down my book and lean over to the dim lamp that guards my nightstand. With one slim click the room plunges into a familiar darkness, the door to my closet becoming the shadow of a man, the curtains in the next room shift from a silhouette to the shoulder of a predator, hulking around the corner, waiting for me to close my eyes. It was the bedroom as before, but now the shapes made new faces, the sounds were all slight – someone sneaking around – and the window behind me was no help; no moon or stars tonight.

Lying on my back, I stare at the threshold to my bedroom. I have no idea what to do should  my fears and nightmares become reality, if someone or something were to slink along the floor boards, avoiding all the creaky spots in the wood and bring their slimy  and eyeless face up to mine, time to die. The knife at my bedside -beneath the lamp- is dull from use; my cellphone is half-charged and I’ve memorized the muscle movement for 9-1-1, but I can’t help to imagine myself paralyzed in fear.

If one of these creatures of the night were to greet me, would it do any good to call the police? I think bullets would only help against your garden variety intruder – not the one I see hiding in the corner.

How long can I sit here by myself?  I could turn the light back on, stay awake all night and try to force myself to be brave, or I could keep choking my way into a panic-driven cardiac arrest. I knew there was one event – one single moment – that could calm me down and bring me to a place where I could sleep, where I could dream a dreamer’s dream.

My ears perked at every snap of the wood, trying to settle my crawling skin and convince my twitchy mind that those were not footsteps. Pop. Creak. Sigh. At the foot of my bed the floor was breathing, it was bending and relaxing – something was there, something was waiting for me stretch my feet from beneath the sheets. The bed skirt ruffles, it rubs together.

My heart is pounding; I can barely hear these terrors over the thump, thump, thumpthumpthumpthump of my own insides.

I pull my feet up slightly, slowly, gently – I don’t want to warn the creature that I’m awake – and I turn my head to watch the right side as the sound creeps along the bottom.

Silence.

I slow my breathing; thinking, perhaps, I imagined the noises, I imagined the nightmare. The wind rocks the outside, knocking my back door around in its loose frame. I can close my eyes.

Sigh.

I stare beyond my eyelids, into the depths of darkness and the boundaries of sleep. Blackness - complete and hollow - blankets my sight, allowing me to see the bleeding colors of my dreams, the fuzzy lines of my imagination and the memories of yesterday. My body map condenses and my hands and feet feel close to my body, but miles away.  The sheets draped across my chest fade away and dull into a warm hum in my skin; I float.

SNAP.