Friday, September 23, 2011

There's not a body down there, silly.

I fell asleep watching Adult Swim again.
I woke at five in the morning to the sound of Bugs and Daffy arguing. It's enough to convince me that Looney Tunes should have hung their hats with the passing of Mel Blanc. The remote is sticking out halfway from under a pillow. I make quick use of it, snapping myself into total darkness. My eyes take a minute to adjust to the shadows.

It occurs to me that I've missed the slide into Fall this morning by an hour. I'm not much of a nature lover unless I'm standing next to an angry ocean, but I do enjoy the quiet magic of the changing of the seasons. Thinking about this gives me an idea for the tapestry I'm going to create this week. I need to go to the store and pick up a specific type of needle for embroidery work. I need to finish the painting on my easel first, though. It's been sitting there far, far too long, and it's almost becoming part of the decor as an unfinished piece. If I die today, my kids would probably hang it on their own walls and convince their friends it's the work of an artistic genius. Half paint, half sketch. I am so friggin' creative.

There's no going back to sleep at this point, not that I would want to. I had a full night's sleep, but that always comes at a price. Nightmares. They weren't as powerful as usual. I didn't jerk back into my waking world desperate to escape my pursuer, attacker, killer, stalker. I only have flickers of images. Dirty children huddled in corners and sounds of anger and war. There must have been some sort of disease or madness going around. In the dream, I mean....

I'm up, and my day has begun. The dog is up. The puppies are up. The damn birds are up. I can't wait for them to migrate. All that cheerfulness this early in the morning is nuts. Who's that happy at five in the morning? Maybe if I go remind them it's autumn now, they'll pack up and head south.

There's a hole in my kitchen floor. We had a plumbing leak yesterday, and the maintenance guy had to cut a square  hole into the floor to reach the pipe.. He'll be back next week to resurface it, but right now, it seems as if we have a trap door in the middle of the kitchen. There are a million and one stories running through my head about that silly trap-door. "The Tell-Tale Heart" comes to mind, and I dismiss all my stories as second-rate baloney compared to Poe.

But still, there's a hole in my kitchen floor...

10 comments:

  1. I don't know so much about the second rate or baloney part. Just saying.

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  2. Robbie, you are often much too kind to me.

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  3. Ah, the hole in the kitchen floor. Nearly as bad as the attic hatch that slightly creaks on a windy autumn eve.

    Those sort of nightmares are horrible. I’m sure they're the type that would have had us screaming as kids, our parents running into the bedroom in the middle of the night to cuddle us.

    Enjoyed this post very much.

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  4. Weird thing was I did that last night...after watching a nail-biting, edge of your seat, scream at the tv football match (well it is finals season here and my team is lookin' damn good to take out the cup) I dozed off.
    I woke at a rakish angle to some woman screaming at me (on the tv mind you) about some keraazy kitchen device that would do all sorts of mad things. I vaguely remember muttering shut the fuck up before I pulled the plug on the teev as I couldn't find my remote...
    As for the hole in the floor, have you erected a little perimeter fence around it and put up signs?
    You really should as those kids do like holes...
    Nice post and I do love the Poe reference :)

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  5. God Nessa I wish I could write the way you do.

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  6. wait a minute, don't you live in texas? i thought that's where the birds migrate to. i mean, i sort of imagine that the birds from up north, after flying for days, hit texas and are like, "dude, this is warm enough, let's stop here." and then they go to rodeos and dude ranches, since it's texas. :)

    p.s. i like your new 'about me'!

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  7. maybe it was the autumnal equinox that threw your mojo off..... and for the record - I don't think I could sleep with a hole in the floor.... we re-did our bathroom and when they took the tub out...I had to leave... made me nervous....

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  8. Dicky-my dad tried to wake me from a nightmare once. I punched him in the eye. From then on, he let my mom and grandma handle it.

    Dan- I threw a piece of plywood over it. Not for safety. Just because it was creeping me out.

    Light-that's the craziest thing I've ever heard you say.

    id-I imagine they fly to Mexico. They have better tequila there.

    Maria-If they took my tub out, I would leave too. No bubble baths? That IS a nightmare...

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