5 August 2012
I had been in the cupboard for a good long while now. I loved it in there. It was peaceful and quiet and my own lovely space, just for me. Maybe not for always, but for now was good enough.
I started humming a little tune and thought about my cat. Her name is Maisy and mine is Megan(M&M for short) and she is such a darling little black and white thing. All cuddly and soft and filled with fun. I am not sure my mum thinks Maisy is much fun when she had tangled all her knitting; but she loves her really, when the crossness has worn off anyway! Maisy was a birthday present and became part of the family last wednesday, but now it seems she is always with us and I have know her always.
In my cupboard, as time seems to spread out before me, and I am thinking my happy thoughts, The atmosphere is Changing and cold invades from nowhere. I shiver and I wonder, what has changed to make it feel so scared. And the reason for the change is soon apparent; the space just got smaller and smaller, the dark got much, much darker and the silence do quiet. I could not hear a thing. And then... And then. I can hardly bring myself to speak of it, so dreadful was it. So completely out of the blue. The most awful thing happened! Someone breathed next to me, in the dark and the silence. The sound of breathing. But not my own. Someone was in here with me. I could hear the rasping sound of air, flowing in and out, like sea upon a shore. But unlike the gentle waves, each breath seemed to assail my very being and invade my very space. Oh, how I wished I were still alone. I longed to hear the silence of only a few moments ago and not this awful breathing of whom I did not know. I tried a quite "hello" and desperately hoped upon hope no answer would be forthcoming. It wasn't. Only the sound of the breathing answered and that just made it worse. The terror started building; it grew and grew and grew. Until I knew absolutely, I could not do anything or even move at all. The only thing that saved me was the footsteps from outside and a pounding on the door as a breathless friend squeezed in my cupboard beside me. To be continued...
THE CUPBOARD. • Opuss № I