That's All

Someone at the Door

I thought I couldn't get anymore terrified than that frame of time when I sat and stared at the blank wall above the tv, but I was dead wrong. The clock struck out loud and clear, and suddenly there was a clatter in the foyer. Quick as a whip, I unfolded my legs from underneath me and landed the pads of my feet on the coarse carpet. It took a second to let the blood flow back into my muscles. 

How long have I been sitting here? 

Toes on the ground, I leveled myself, ready to sprint. But from who? Too where? The kitchen? The bathroom? Whoever lives here is bound to find me if i keep hiding all day. In bitter defeat, I pulled my legs back into a fettle position, ready to plead for mercy, to protect my worthless, weak body from whoever was about to crash through that door. 

A lock was placed in the key hole, then withdraw. "Wrong key," a male voice muttered from the other side. I shrunk down to two feet tall as that fact soaked inot the very pores of my bing. My mind reeled just imagining all the awful things that could happen to me if he had his way. Did he put me here? Have I been kidnapped? Where am I? The same fears rolled through my tired, weary brain. My veins pulsed so loud I imagined they would burst.

I took one last large gulp, as if to swallow down my fears, drown my sorrows down my fears, and face my passinf with brave eyes. I mentally prepared myself for anything; guns, knives, greedy men, crazy captors, weapons of mass hysteria, everything, except a blank stare. And that is exactly what I got. 

The face of a young man of about twenty four years old gaped at my small, feeble existence heaped on his upholstery. He stared, I stared. For a good thirty seconds, he said nothing. In the sickening silence I studied his face, taking in every lock and freckle. His mocha colored hair hung on his scalp at haphazard angles and curled in random places, as if he literally rolled out of bed in morning, without even glancing at his complexion (which had a startling chance of being true.) Although he aimed at looking professional with his tight and stuffy tie and a more-or-less wrinkle free khakis, the way his shirt was half untucked and his left shoe lace was coming undone suggested he wasn't very grown up yet on the inside. He didn't seem like a loser, on the contrary, he seemed better off than most bachelors his, there was just something about his slightly pointy ears and evident shadow of an elfin grin that reassured a person that he wasn't a stuffy old coot yet. I wasn't until until he piped up moments later that i realized I had lost myself in his deep brown eyes, my defenses turned off like a light switch. I quickly snapped back into protection mode, and waited for him to make the first attempt at communication.