A night's tale

It was really uncharacteristic of me to wake up in the middle of the night. I mean, I dont usually get up in my sleep even to piss. But here I am, having woken up like a shot bang in the middle of deep sleep. Wondering what was it that caused the sudden rush of adrenalin, I try to close my eyes and retrace the fading realms of any dreams I might have seen... or more likely, nightmares. No, there isn't any. I am wet. Err, I mean, I am sweating. I sharpen my ears to listen to the drone of the ceiling fan, which has a habit of melting in your ears once it goes on for a while, pretty much like the tick of the clock. You cant hear it unless you really strain your ears and concentrate. No, I dont hear any. The power must have gone off. And that explains all the sweat.

I scrambled up, almost stumbled upon the bean bag, but found my way to the blacony door and opened it. Ah! what a relief. It was so cold and crisp outside. There was no moon but I could see the silhouettes of trees. And there was this peculiar smell, too. Nothing like I have ever experienced before. I stood there for a while before I went back to my bed, leaving the door open. That smell is really getting to my head...

I dont remember how long I slept, or whether that I slep at all, but I opened my eyes, sensing some movement about the balcony door. My blood must have turned into ice and my nerves must have stopped transmitting to the limbs, for I could not move a finger, even after the visual impulses set about a flurry of activity in my brain which under normal circumstances would have caused such a big rush of adrenalin that would make me either scream, start to run or at leat bloody get up from the bed. I saw the silhouette of a female at the door. Her hair was loose and flew about her head in the cool breeze. I could not see her face. It must have been a gown she was wearing, but I could trace all the lines of her body as the strange green light from behind weaving through the cloth of her dress. She put her foot forward and her face came into the light, and if ever there were any active nerves left in my body, were turned immobile by that sight.

I was frozen by the thought that all the fear in my body had given away to a strange sort of longing now. I realized I no longer had any control over my mind, or body. She moved towards me, her steely eyes piercing deep into my psyche, sat on the bed, and smiled. Well, how do you normally react when you find someone has got a set of canines that grows long when she opens her mouth? I don't know. And I haven;t had the chance to meet anyone who knows. I think I just sat there, unable to react, and let her come to me. The canines felt icy cold when they pierced my neck, but there was no pain whatsoever. I closed my eyes.

* * * * * *



It lay by the side of my bed when I woke up. Initially I was perplexed by the little black mass that lay on the floor. But as I tried to touch it, t spread its wings and there was no mistaking the wings of a bat. A bumble-bee. It looked cute until the point I decided to lift it up and look at its face. Man, there's nothing else in that face, but pure evil. But it was lovely, in a devilish sort of way, and quite immoble. I dont know what happened, it must have hit the fan or something. I took it, and placed it gently on the floor outside. It crawled to a corner and sat there, never looking up.

A perfect start to the week!

It took about 38 Megatonnes of will and 5 snoozes on the alarm and 2 phone calls to make me lumber myself out of bed today, limp towards the bathroom, spend a rather unsuccessful 15 minutes there, and treat myself with a bone-chilling bath at 3 am in the morning. Am no masochist, mind you, all this because Sydney runs four and half hrs ahead of us. And my client happens to be there.

So I drive 27 kms to office, kill two toads and almost kill a cyclist on the road, sing aloud with Alanis Morissette to keep myself from dozing off while driving, reach a deserted and ghostly looking office (duh! I need more choices in life, I sure do) and wonder why there aint been a call on my mobile yet, despite I being 10 minutes late for the meeting...I will most surely sleep off in the meeting, coz I was late to bed yesterday, after having a rather harrowing experience in trying to reach home in an overcrowded KSTRC superfast. With all this conflicting deliberations in my mind, I open my calendar, to discover that the 5-day early-morning exercise planned for this week is from Tuesday to Saturday, not Monday to Friday!

Amen!