Nighttime Terror

Three thirty-three in the morning is not a good time to be awake.  Especially if that awake person suffers from an over-active imagination – and is spending the night alone.  The twelves are cautious, the ones are worrisome, the twos are frightening, but the threes are downright terrifying.  The trick is to keep the imagination in check until the grouchy fours are reached.  The fours signalize a good chance that morning, if not exactly arrived, is on the way to chase nighttime under the bed.  There nighttime will hide until once again it finds someone unfortunately awake on its watch.  The clock changed - 3:37.

Zoey heard the siren approaching.  Faintly at first but getting loudly insistent– something bad was happening – a probable heart-attack.  Some night that could be her.  Her heart was racing and seemed to beat erratically.  Oh no, the siren must be for her.  Well, at least the ambulance was responding quickly – in fact, on second thought, perhaps a little too quickly.  She tried to calm herself down.  “Zoey, you are not having a heart-attack, and that siren is not for you.”  Her breathing became a bit more normal.  She checked the clock – 3:42. 

She tried to laugh off her scare - to think that ambulance was for her when she hadn’t even dialed 911. Panic was back in a flash!!!  How could you dial 911 when you were having a heart-attack?  Tomorrow – if it ever got here – she would buy one of those emergency beepers usually reserved for the elderly.  Having a plan calmed her down and she was able to turn her concentration fully on making it through the threes:  3:45, 3:46, 3:47.

Headlights broke through the blinds like an intruder and interrupted Zoey’s intent stare at the clock.  Her annoyance was cut short.  Displayed in full view on the wall was the silhouette of a man hunched outside her bedroom window.  Zoey froze as the man’s shadow ran quickly across the walls of her bedroom while the car drove slowly past.  The car and its headlights were gone taking away the shadow, but Zoey knew the man was still out there.

Holding her breath, Zoey slid to the floor hiding between the small space between the bed and wall.  She waited for what seemed like forever.  Hearing nothing she cautiously glanced at the clock, 4:01.  She had made it!!!  There was no way she was getting murdered during the dead of night now.  With morning on her side, she felt courageous enough to look out the window and monitor the progress of the potential prowler.  She eased up one corner of the blinds, but saw nothing.  The alley was deserted.  She sat up and looked directly out her window.  There was no man, no intruder, no prowler, just a smirking rhododendron bush with one branch leaning casually on the windowsill.  Zoey had officially made it through the night, and now it was time to get some sleep.