Knock on my door, soft rattle at the door, a flutter against the paint, a coo.Wings falling from the clouds.
I open up, look up, cry out.
The sky is blue but the sky is wrong.
Today is over, it should be night!
That's why I have come, to tell you of this unforeseen event, this unknowable present.
Wrap yourself in a piece of blanket, share with everyone you know, everyone in your household, run!
Take flight!
Get away.
What's going on?
I shake my head, my eyeballs feel loose, I cry uncontrollably.
Bugs, everywhere bugs.
Nibbling at the greenery, biting my arms and legs, nibbling at my clothes.
A lone preacher makes his way door to door, selling Jesus, telling us there's no other way.
Hurry, out the back children!
We run through the cornfields, stalks twice as high as we are.
The children disappear one at a time.
I'm all alone.
Forever lost, turning, searching, falling.
I'm sitting on the edge of my bed, my feet are sore.
I've just awakened into a pitch black room, my face is wet.
I've been crying.
I touch the bed behind me; it is soft.
You're not there.
You've run away.
You left me long ago and I can't reconcile the emptiness, still hear the sounds, still smell you.
You never existed.
I feel silly.
I've got nothing better to do with my time than sit around making up silly things.
Crazy notions.
I saw it take you over, saw you shrink back, fall down, waste away.
I saw you drinking, smoking, bleeding, dying.
Are you dead?
Can I see you?
There is a knock on the closet door, from the inside, a brushing sound, a wing scraping on the door, weak, a cry, a cooing, the door is slightly ajar.
It moves.
Lightning flashes, the cat jumps.
Run, children, run to the barn!
I can't make out where I've wound up.
I'll see you when I get there!
But you never arrived, you never got here.
I'm heartbroken.
I don't know whether to hate you or throw myself into the fire.
Hot heat, boiling the blood, flesh peels away, muscles cook, meat smell, hunger.
Sorrow on the couch.
A painting with a smudge.
A beautiful landscape but for a smudged tree.
A thumb print.
You ran with it before the oil had time to dry.
Who was coming after you?
And where did you end up?
Where have I ended up?
I'm on a stage, a bedroom scene.
Applause, the curtain rises.
Silence.
I am all alone.
I look up and don't know what to say.
The footlights blind me.
I lift a hand sideways and block the light, stop the glare.
I don't know what I'm looking for, but I see you.
You are getting up from your seat, moving across the row.
Expectancy.
Everyone sits waiting.
You are the only sound I hear.
A knock on the door.
An odd brushing sound.
Wings.
Wings flapping against the door.
Run, children, run!
