one night
One night, something might pass by and, seeing a light burning in your window, stop. It might turn towards your house, shuffle up to your door, and knock.
Knock.
Knock.
You put your eye to the door but there is nothing except an eye looking right back at you. And there is your heart going
Knock.
The telephone on the kitchen table. Your mobile phone, under a pile of clothes on your bed. What you really want is a weapon. What you really want is courage.
So you wait behind the door, you wait and do nothing. And then you think, the window. It’s going to come in through the window.
And you hear the sound of its fist on the glass.
Knock.
But you don’t dare to move the curtain and look. You don’t want it to see you.
Knock.
If you just keep still, maybe it will go away.
Knock.
Maybe it will try someone else tonight.
And when it stops knocking, you wait
and wait
and finally you work up the guts to push the curtain aside and there is nothing out there.
But you see it.
(Reflected in the glass.)
It’s behind you.
Knock.
Kate M said,
May 8, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Interesting childlore resonances in this one, I think – it reminded me of the skipping rhyme Not Last Night, and all the fairytales that involve somebody knocking at the door.