Living with the (Un)living.

The first memory of my visitor was when I was around 12 or 13 years old.

It was the middle of the night and I was happily asleep…perhaps dreaming of my boyfriend Scott Baio.

I was in such a deep sleep that it was a struggle to comprehend what I was hearing…it took a few minutes or seconds, I am not for sure.

Then my brain came out of the fog long enough to figure out what I was hearing.

It sounded like someone walking in our third floor hallway, where our three bedrooms were located.

My bedroom door was wide open, it always was.

I glanced in the direction of the hall from my bed, and could see nothing. It was dark, but I would surely see if someone was standing there.

I thought that maybe it was part of a dream.

I tried to go back to sleep, in a moment, I would realize that was futile.

There it is again…that sound of someone slowly creeping by my room, past my brothers room and towards Mom’s room.

Then the steps came back in the direction of my room.

And stopped.

What?

Who is that?

What is that?

I froze.

I stared at the black ceiling over my bed.

My brain was working overtime. Trying to digest this.

I could faintly hear my brothers stereo through the paper thin walls…at 16, he lived with his headphones on connected to his stereo, drowning out the world around him.

Gosh, how I wished it was him walking around in the middle of the night.

The steps then made the same path as before…passing Marks room towards Mom’s.

and then back.

And then, the creeping went down the stairs.

In this wood framed townhouse, you could hear every little creak and crack.

It went down the stairs slowly…then came back up.

It then made the same tracks up and down the hall but quicker now. Someone was in a hurry.

After a few more minutes, it descended the stair well again, but faster than the first time.

This was my chance. My chance for escape.

I grabbed my pillow.

I put my pillow over my face and ran out of my room to my Mom’s room, lucky that I did not run into a wall.

I made a huge leap into her king sized bed and thanked the good lord she was home this night.

I snuggled in close.

Mom was dead asleep.

Dead to the world and the happenings in our house.

But she was there.