Knocker

Sleep

I stare at him for an eternity. It's probably just a few minutes, but it feels like so much longer. I hear a sound, like a heartbeat but more like a clock's ticking. I don't have a clock in my room so I know it's coming from Knocker, it must be. He isn't looking at me, but at the floor. He isn't clinging onto the ceiling like he should be; he's just lying down on it, as if it were the floor and gravity were reversed.

I swallow, and it hurts because my throat is dry and rough, and I order Knocker, "Come down."

He looks at me and he doesn't look happy. He looks disgusted, his face all scrunched up as if I was a bad smell that just hit his nose. He doesn't reply.

"Come down, Knocker," I say again, and I hear a little growl as Knocker floats down to the floor slowly. He doesn't like to be ordered to do anything. He turns in the air to land on his four bear paws, and then he shakes his head wildly. He scratches at the carpeted floor before charging, a mad bull bolting towards me.

I'm shaking a lot but I stay there, my feet buried in the wood-floor. Sweat trickles down the side of my face, and I leave it there. I can't mess this up.

One foot is behind me pointed to the side, the other is in front aimed at Knocker, and I lean towards him as I take the pillowcase and open it wide. His button eyes stretch wide and he tries to stop, but he's coming in too fast and he tumbles into my trap. Quickly quickly I close the opening and keep my hands around it, afraid that if I don't keep it tight, he'll just squeeze through and bite my face off.

I can feel him fighting inside the pillowcase, kicking and roaring, growing and cussing and punching like a crazy person in a soft-wall room in one of those jackets without arms. I take a deep breath before using all my strength to smash the pillowcase against the floor, then the wall. Knocker is screaming for me to stop, pleading, begging. I growl at him to shut up.

Knocker stops struggling after a few more blows, and I can just barely hear his ticking heart.

I tie the opening while I dig in the garden. It starts to rain but I don't mind much, I keep digging. I get a lot of dirt in my fingernails and it is annoying but I still keep digging because it has to be done and I'm the only one to do it so I turn off my brain and just work work work. I find a bone while digging, and it's a big one, like an arm. I toss it to the side.

It takes me a long time, and it's stopped raining and it's morning when I'm done. There are birds singing and the sun is lighting up the world. The phone rings and someone leaves a message for Marisa, but there's no Marisa here only Tommy so I ignore it.

I find Ma in the living room, a few meters away from the kitchen where I hurt her. She is too heavy to move so instead I just put a blanket over her and I steal the flowers in the vase on the kitchen table and I put it in her hands.

I throw Knocker in the hole and I bury him up. I can hear him begging and crying as I toss dirt onto the pillowcase. He says that he'll listen to me now, that I'm the boss now, he'll stop ordering me around, he'll help me, he'll be good. I smile when he says these things, but I don't change my mind.

When the hole is filled and Knocker is gone, I can still hear the ticking, very quietly, but still there.

I snuggle up next to Ma to sleep, and she's cold. She really still and there's no sound coming from her. I wonder what death is like, if there is a place you go to when you're done living. I wonder if Ma was done living, or if I cut her life short and is she mad that she couldn't do more things? I wonder if it's just like sleeping, like if it's just a really long, nice sleep that you don't wake up from. 

I kiss Ma's forehead and whisper how much I love her. I tell her I'm sorry and it was an accident, and then her eyes open a little bit and she smiles and says that she loves me a lot a lot and it's okay, it's fine.

I take a deep breath and then let it out, and then I sleep.