Last year
“Not a creature was stirring,” I thought. Ha ha ha. I stretched out on my brother’s couch, where I’ve been living this December. I don’t have my own place anymore. Everything I had died in a parking lot. So family and friends put me up, a month here, six weeks there, all so I can pull myself together and get on with my life. Like that can ever happen.
The fireplace stared back at me, an empty hole. I wish I was an alcoholic. Then I could slip into a whiskey-coma every night. I could drink until my liver looked like a cracked sponge and die. Instead I get the quiet. Tonight, however, the silence is broken.
The noise starts on the rooftop, a long banging, like cars slowly crashing. It startles me so bad I bolt straight up on the couch. My brother remains asleep, I guess, because he doesn’t charge down the stairs. I head toward the windows, the hardwood floor like ice against my bare feet, and open the curtains. I see a few parked cars, snow covered yards, that’s all.
Then, I hear a sound like pieces of sandpaper being rubbed against bricks and I spin around. The creature lands in the fireplace. Enough light enters the room for me to see the black cloud of soot rise under his feet. He ducks down and steps out of the fireplace.
“Oh, God!”
He – it – is two feet tall and dressed like one of Santa’s helpers, but instead of green and red his pointy boots and tights and top jacket are black as motor oil. His face seems smashed, like he ran right into a wall. But what freaks me out most is the eyes – two pinpoints of yellow, glaring at me.
“No, not God,” he says.
And that’s when I start to scream.
The fireplace stared back at me, an empty hole. I wish I was an alcoholic. Then I could slip into a whiskey-coma every night. I could drink until my liver looked like a cracked sponge and die. Instead I get the quiet. Tonight, however, the silence is broken.
The noise starts on the rooftop, a long banging, like cars slowly crashing. It startles me so bad I bolt straight up on the couch. My brother remains asleep, I guess, because he doesn’t charge down the stairs. I head toward the windows, the hardwood floor like ice against my bare feet, and open the curtains. I see a few parked cars, snow covered yards, that’s all.
Then, I hear a sound like pieces of sandpaper being rubbed against bricks and I spin around. The creature lands in the fireplace. Enough light enters the room for me to see the black cloud of soot rise under his feet. He ducks down and steps out of the fireplace.
“Oh, God!”
He – it – is two feet tall and dressed like one of Santa’s helpers, but instead of green and red his pointy boots and tights and top jacket are black as motor oil. His face seems smashed, like he ran right into a wall. But what freaks me out most is the eyes – two pinpoints of yellow, glaring at me.
“No, not God,” he says.
And that’s when I start to scream.
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