STORM ON A NEVER ENDING NIGHT

Storm on a never ending Night

Scraping against my window

With it's tattered, twisted fingers

The ravaged tree branch makes

A screeching noise like nails on chalkboard

The wind howls like a banshee out of it's mind

And repeats it's attack against the house

And tree over and over and over again

Like a crazed thing caught in a groove

It cannot escape from......

Thunder, loud as a million drums rolls across

The midnight skies in a kind of fearsome 

Rhythm reminiscent of a marching band orchestrated

And led by a madman's creative frenzy

The lightning strikes come fast and furious

Blinding me like a photographer's flash

And sudden car lights on a dark road

I am so afraid!

Here alone in the darkness with the blankets

Pulled over my head and the cat sleeping

Restlessly on my feet though she jumps

At every roar and flash and scrape

I peek between my frozen fingers now and then

At the window and the scene lit up beyond

It's safety to a terrible landscape groaning

In the storm on this never ending night.....

I close my eyes and try to escape in sleep

But it is elusive and the dreams won't come

Though I force my eyelids to stay tightly shut

What's that?! 

The wind has broken the branch and the branch

Has broken the window, the rain pours in now

I cry out loud and clutch the blanket 

To my trembling body that will not be still

And I wonder what to do. What to do.....

Suddenly, the cat stands and arches her feline body

High in the air and makes an unearthly screech

Like nothing I have ever heard her make before

She stares at the broken window and the branch

Protruding through it as the rain flows down it's gray bark

And hits my floor like a waterfall then splashes up

Onto the bed and blankets

She hisses and growls and I reach my hand out to her

To pull her to me and comfort her though I don't know how.....

And then I see it. Outside the window. Peering in

It's red eyes glowing in the dark and then shining in the lightning

That strikes in ever increasing intensity

Watching us. Waiting there in the storm just outside

Watching, just watching. The cat and I are frozen, we cannot move

We cannot call out, we cannot cry, we cannot breathe

We cannot.......and then a hand unlike any hand I have ever seen

Comes through the window, moving the tree branch and brushing

Away the shattered glass. A giant, hideous hand. Moving....

And behind it a tall dark form too terrible to behold 

And too terrible to look away from

I cannot look away and I cannot run

The cat flings herself into my arms and we shrink back

Against the wall making ourselves as tiny as we can

The thunder rolls and the lightning flashes and the rain pours

As the sounds of broken glass hits the floor

Terror as I've never known it overtakes me then and my mind

Shuts down and deserts me like a traitor as I scream.....

The cat, brave little creature that she is, stands up as if

To defend me as the form slides into the window cleared of debris

And it's shadow fills the room and looms above me

I hear the cat attack, sinking her claws into the uninvited thing

Going for it's eyes, shredding it with feline swords and howling

It's then I find my feet and I fly out of the room into the darkness

Into the street, into the storm and I run and I run and I run and I run

Like a marathon runner with no need of breath. I run.....

        With bare feet, and hair streaming, my long white gown

        Flowing ghost- like around me in the night

I run in terror. I run in hope and I don't know where I'm running to

Suddenly, I see a flash ahead of me, maybe the dawn, maybe the sun

Maybe a rescuer. I dare to slow and catch my breath in gasps

Though it hurts now to breathe. I stop and I stand there in the road

Waiting for the light to come again and crying tears that mingle with the rain.....

And then I see....there in the darkness. .coming towards me

For the second time in a night that never ended

Those red eyes.... glowing.......

And I cannot run anymore. I can't. I cannot run anymore.

So I stand there and I wait

As the storm swirls around me, my terror melting from exhaustion

Resigned, I wait for the touch of that hideous hand and to be

Engulfed in those awful eyes......

And then, I am. And then I am.

©by Voo

Feb 21, 2005

       2 a.m.