WHO'S THERE?
by Melanie Ann Campbell

Early morning sunlight did its 'squint me awake' thing through the slats of the bedroom blinds, when the crashing sound jolted me out of bed, eyes half-closed, brain numb, as I pelted into a stumbling, half-asleep, headlong rush down the hallway, where the dog got under my feet, yipping and shaking, as the cat soared over my head, startling me into turning around too fast and running smack, face first into an open door, unbalanced onto my backsides, with bright red blood gushing from my nose, while groping on hands and knees toward the bathroom, only to discover the damned door had slammed shut, thus locking itself again, but I didn't have a key, and would have to crawl to the kitchen, find a butter knife, crawl back to the bathroom, work the knife around in the knob, in hopes the lock would give before the knife blade; however, while I was planning these steps inside of my head, another crash sounded, and I knew it wasn't the cat or dog because the dog sat, staring at the crazy lady with the bloody nose, beside the cat who washed her front paws with feigned indifference, then glanced up at me with a quick look before darting away to check out the noise, while I lay their bleeding and trying to decide what to do next, but before I could come up with a plan, that's about when I passed out; with my last almost coherent thought being somewhat confusing and on the order of, 'if the dog and the cat didn't knock something over and break it, then who came into my house, in the early morning hours and ran into something that crashed, loudly, then was dumb enough to crash into something else even louder?'

© Melanie Ann Campbell 2004

Melanie Ann Campbell and her husband of many years have recently retired to that quiet place in the country. Now, with time to do anything she wants, she finds there isn't much of it left once she begins writing.

(bobandmag@psci.net)

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