|
Darn it all anyway.
A crick was definitely
beginning to form in the small of my back. My
fingers were asleep. This same tingling numbness was slowly moving up my
arms on its way to my elbows. The question was: how much longer could I
stand on my tiptoes with my arms in mid-air? The thought did cross my mind
that if any one of my muscles were to contract or twitch in one direction or
another, I might (and undoubtedly would) lose my balance, tip over and land
in a heap on my kitchen floor.
As was my nightly
ritual, I’d made my way down to the kitchen to get a
drink of water in complete darkness. This, you see, is my theory: If I move
around in the dark my body won’t realize it’s awake. So, with eyes
half-shut I wander about getting my drink, using the washroom, and then
popping back into bed to continue dreaming where I left off. Some nights it
even works.
I was getting a drink
of water at my kitchen sink when I noticed it. Even
in my sleep-laden stupor, I caught a glimpse of movement just as I raised
the glass of water to my lips. I leaned over the sink and slipped the
blinds open a wee bit wider to see what was going on. If Emily Kolinski’s
dogs were racing through my yard again she’d hear from me in the morning.
It took a few seconds to realize the disturbance could definitely not be
blamed on Emily’s dogs. Neither was anything happening in my own yard.
A sudden sharp pain in my lower spine reminded me I could no longer
continue to stand bent over the sink, forcing the miniblinds apart with the
two fingers of one hand and holding my glass of water midway in the air with
the other. I decided to put the drink down and concentrate on the blinds.
The opening was narrow
enough for me to peek through but I was quite certain
no one from the outside could see me. It was important that I take every
precaution because, unless I was suddenly becoming senile or my eyes were
playing nasty tricks on me, two people were removing a body from the house
behind mine. From the looks of it, I would say a very dead body.
My stomach did a
strange flip. Of course, the only rational explanation
was that I hadn’t quite finished off my dream and it had decided to start up
again before I got back into bed. I let go of the blind with one hand and
gave my other arm a good pinch. No, I definitely was not dreaming. No
matter which way I pinched, this was reality.
Why would I, Mabel
Wickles, have to be the one to witness this? What
kind of star had I been born under anyway? It seems every time someone yells
‘trouble’ I
come out of nowhere and jump right into it.
| 
Sharon
Rose