001: Long Winter's Nap

As I lay dawn for a long winter's nap setting the alarm clock for April, a scuttle beneath the bed arises from the floor boards resonating into the rafters. Peering beneath the bed skirt to discover the scuttlebutt would frighten a wiser man, but this fearless being wrestled down the terrors of beasts of ill will living beneath the confines of the box spring decades ago. The desk lamp’s piercing light probed deeper and deeper into the mystery as the hem of fabric teasing the floor boards is lifted inch by inch. The raggedy edge of a long forgotten white sock is the first discovery though no treasure hunter would find this news worthy. Further probing and farther reaching, the light slips deeper and deeper into the wary depths of the cavern below the bed. The sock sits alone for a few inches before a black shape shuffles to the left and back to the right like some tiny running back escaping the tackling of the glowing light. Inches more light flood in and capture the cricket rushing for the safety of night on the other side of the room.

The mystery appears solved until a gentle nibbling noise is heard from the far corner of the bed. Flashlight in hand, a stronger attack on the dark reveals a tiny mouse nibbling on the bed post. The foot to the bed is feet away, but t is apparent from the angle this is not the mouse’s first patronage to this woodsy diner. A few raps of the flashlight against the metal under wiring to the bed frame ends the dinner prematurely as the mouse is heard scurrying out towards that same dark night as the cricket. Perhaps a refined ear can catch a crunching noise imagined to be the young mouse finding the aforementioned cricket a much more satisfying meal for the evening. A snap cracks through the quiet evening as a mouse trap takes its place at the top of the rodent food chain for the night.

A click of the flash light and flapping of the bed skirt dropping to the floor accentuate the stillness in the room. With only the bed lamp to quell before slumber can grasp the edges of reality and shake it from this place, a clatter of objects shift loudly and settle to the ground in the closet. Though startling to the stillness, no surprise or upheaval results from what has always been considered a leaning tower of baseball bats, hats, boxes and shoes waiting to give gravity its due. Another task beckons in the morning in the form of clean up, but the slumbering giant weighs heavy on the room and tonight is not the night for such concerns. The bed lamp sets just sixteen inches away from the bed highlighting the narrowness of the gap between the stumbling remains of consciousness and the graceful bounding dreams waiting.

In a blink, the lamp is smashed to the ground by an unseen paw and darkness prevails. The extinguished light dashes the definition of the room into a million points of bleak darkness. Previously unheard yet so heavy on the floor boards, only foot falls can be observed in the room before a pair of beady red eyes float up from the foot of the bed over the headboard. A warm draft pours over the pillow and warms what can only be assumed will be a final midnight snack for the beast in the dark. A retched odor hangs in the warm air over my face as the long winter’s nap becomes certain to be extended indefinitely.