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.
