Last Night

Lying in the dark, the light from the cracked closet door leaks out and provides enough illumination that I can see. I need to be able to see. If I can't see him, he will surely be there.

Outside my window I hear the snaps and thuds of something lurking. I tell myself it's simply one of the local strays, but somehow I can't quite make myself believe it. It all feels too deliberate.

I've noticed an increase in insect activity around the house. It's summer, of course, but I don't recall it being quite this bad before. They seem more aggressive. There was a big cockroach the other day. Fast and flighty. A jumper. You don't see them act like that often. When I hit him with the bug spray he leapt straight up in the air about four inches and then came right for me.

I finished him off with an errant flip-flop my wife had left lying about.

That kind of aggression is rare though. I wonder if it means something.

Before bed I had that "bug crawling through your hair" feeling and when I reached up it turned out to be just that. An inch and a half long brown insect whose species I could not identify. After hurling it away from my head I hunted it with help from Calypso, my paranoid cat, and dispatched it with the same flip-flop.

I admit I hit it several more times than was strictly necessary.

I lie here next to my wife, who sleeps soundly and without worry, and listen to the lurking noises outside. I drift off. Fear sets in and I snap awake again. Any moment now I'm sure when I open my eyes I'll see it. The pale luminous face that I have always been sure will be the last thing I see in the world.