A Type of Human Bondage

A Type of Human Bondage

I’m reading on my Kindle app on my iPhone on a Tuesday night. It’s around 11:30 and all is deliciously quiet. The well known book I’m reading I’ve read twice before but the main character never fails to charm me. He’s a young boy born with a club foot. I settle into it, my mind imagining all that’s going on with the boy in the United Kingdom of old.

It’s midnight when I bookmark where I’ve stopped reading and turn off the light of my iPhone. I
sink down in my bed and shut my eyes while listening to the neighbor’s dog bark and another buddy of his barking back. I fall asleep.

I’m awakened by a noise somewhat louder than the neighbor’s dog. It takes me a while to realize that someone is inside my house. I’m not afraid but I suddenly feel myself sweating. Then a sudden fear makes me unable to throw the blanket off me. Instead, I curl myself up in the fetal position and try to identify what’s going on downstairs.

Is it one person or two? It obviously has to be male. He is opening drawers in the kitchen and I hear a crash of what sounds like my silverware falling to the floor. My heart is doing ricochets in my chest.

What can they be looking for? I don’t have anything that’s worth much.

The sweat is rolling off me under the covers.

Now they’re opening closets kind of loudly. They must not know I’m home. I wonder if my neighbors can hear.

Just in case, I slowly lower myself off the bed and onto the floor, but none too soon. They’re coming up the stairs!

God, what an idiot you are! You should’ve called 9-1-1 while they were down there!

When I hear them in the guest room, I quietly slide myself under the bed and lay there in the dust, listening to the sound of my heart pounding. I hear them opening more drawers and the closet.

What the hell are they looking for?

I can’t take being under this bed much longer. My eyes are watering and I have a powerful urge to sneeze.

God! You should’ve listened to your mother and cleaned under the bed once a week!

Damnit! I can tell they’ve made a mess of the guest room.

What’m I gonna do if I sneeze?

I try quietly gulping air, which is not easy.

They enter my bedroom and switch on the light. I freeze. The cleats on his Nike-clad feet make it easy to track where he’s at: first, my desk.

Oh shit, my laptop!

Oh, shit, my diary!!

Right now, under my bed, I’m gripped by shame, sweat, and a powerful urge to sneeze all at the same time. I have never felt so helpless.

The cleated Nikes make a slow turnaround in my bedroom and whoever it is says something unintelligible.

From outside, I can hear a whistle. The cleats near the window and I can picture whoever it is signaling to his buddy, the rat bastard.

They’re both rat bastards!

Just like a man, the rat bastard inside my house leaves my light on after he leaves my bedroom and downstairs I can hear him breaking more things as I imagine him leaving my house.

My fear has been drowned out by anger. So I slide myself out from under my bed and I sneeze loudly.