Listening in the Darkness

These nights had become a horror and a blessing to Jess. The horror was him; the blessing was how enhanced her senses would become at night. She would not hear better; she just heard more of what most people would normally ignore. The sound of her brother’s breathing in the next room, the creaking of the house, and the sound of her blood in her ears; it was all part of a symphony of nighttime music that would whisper at her. In the silence of waiting and holding her breath each night, she found that she could focus on these whispers.

Jess found that if she stared at the ceiling long enough without blinking; looking at the light bulb on the ceiling would cause the rest of the ceiling to fade away to a white nothingness. Sometimes, while staring at the textures of the floor faces would rise from the grain of the wood and smile at her, or frown, depending on her whim or wish. It was that time of childhood when the mind has as much relevance to reality as the five senses.

As Jess lay there in the dark one of these nights, making up games to distract herself from why she was truly awake, she began to cry softly at the hopelessness of it all. However, even in crying, she was always aware of her surroundings in the back of her consciousness, always listening, and always cautious that at any time she might have to act. He didn’t come in every night. But on the nights he did, it was always the same. Always the same sounds to give him away and to give her that precious asset, time.

The first inkling this night was from the whine of the bedsprings in her mother’s room. Sometimes it was just one of them rolling over, but other times Jess would get her second clue; and tonight, that clue came, the ever so silent latch of her mother’s door being closed. She didn’t hear it open. This was her cue to move. As quietly as a cat, she rolled off the edge of her bed and shimmied to the very back underneath it against the wall, behind the bedside table, and waited.

She could see his feet as he quietly unlatched her door and slid them into her room. They had patches of dark curly hair on the tops of them. His heals were cracked and dry. Her sheets had fallen over the bottom half of her bed and so after a moment, his feet were cut off from view. There was a ruffling of the sheets above her. His head appeared in the doorway to her hiding place. His face was pleasant and he grinned, “Come on out of there.” He cooed. “I need to talk to you a minute.” Inching her way even further towards the back wall, Jess tried to move some of the clothes and books she found nearby between her and him.

Still smiling he reached under the bed towards her and tried to grab her leg. He was lying on the floor now and Jess could see the side of his naked body. Holding her breath, she closed her eyes and tried to squeeze into a ball. “Make yourself nothing and he won’t be able to touch you. He can’t grab what’s not there,” she thought. For a moment it seemed as if her mantra might have worked everything went silent. Then, “I will always be here Jessie. I can wait. I am a patient man and I always get what I want.” Jess opened her eyes and looked. He was gone. That night she stayed under the bed. Still no sleep.