Short Stories

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WHAT IS IT?

I was awakened in the middle of the night by someone smoking a cigarette right in my face. The smoke was twirling up my nostrils and I had the feeling that I was literally going to be sick.

No one in our house smokes, so where in the world was it coming from? The person who was smoking this cigarette was so close but yet so far away! They were so close that I could actually feel some kind of eyes staring at me from the middle of nowhere and I reached down and pulled the covers up to my neck and reached over and touched my husband on the shoulder with an assurance touch.

I was hoping he would awaken and tell me everything was going to be ok, but he just kept on breathing with the even breath of a peaceful sleep! I wanted to wake him up so very much but he needed to rest because his illness was taking the life out of him and his rest meant more to me than my fear.

With my hand still on his shoulder, I opened my eyes to explore our bedroom. The little night light coming from the kitchen was still shinning her light for me to evaluate my surroundings. I noticed the stillness in the room more than anything else; it was like a cold blue misty stillness. I was so alone, it was like me and the night time of all the fears I had ever had since I was born came and smothered the life out of me.

My eyes circled the walls, I saw the cross hanging to the right with the white dove etched inside the middle, and all seemed well with that side of the room. In the corner at the foot of the bed, our computer was blinking its friendly stand-by light on and then off. All the pictures of the children smiled at me from the shelf above the computer and the picture of Jesus with a yellow halo above his head was a light in the darkened mist.

My eyes were actually waiting to rest upon a drunken man and I pictured what I was going to see. I could see him standing above me with a filthy wide rimmed hat on with it pulled down over one eye. I saw the gleam in his other eye as he bent over me and the smoke kept getting worse because the cigarette was dangling out of his mouth, he would have a trench coat on with the signs of mustard sauce dripping from the button holes of that oil filled coat and my mind was thinking, “Lord please help me”!

Not moving one inch of my body, my eye balls kept circling that room, taking in all the little things that I had decorated with over the years. Did you ever notice that the little things are the things that mean the most? My eyes wanted to focus on a little picture that my only son had bought his dad for Fathers Day, there was a light in the sky over shadowing Gods green earth and I could almost remember the reading, “Dad~the memories of our times together have become a priceless treasure, your counsel, love and friendship is a wealth beyond all measure.”

My eyeballs stopped dead still as love entered that room and sat down! What a difference, when love enters, fear has to take a back seat.
It was our home, our bedroom, our time, our space, our love, our life and I was determined to go back to sleep, because it was only two thirty in the morning. I gently laid my other hand upon my husbands’ shoulder and it was then that I felt the peace of his peace. I closed my eyes and fell asleep as the smoke twirled on out of our bedroom window.

©Mary Alice Bowles
7/17/09

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