Environmental Changes

It was dark and I was trying unsuccessfully to sleep on the couch. Painting materials were littered across my bedroom with tarps covering the bed and the floor. Muscles ached, sore in unfamiliar ways.

In the dining room, the sliding glass door to the backyard was open but the screen door kept the bugs out and let the cool air in. I had gone to bed about midnight, after mindlessly surfing the same websites—Facebook, Youtube, Gmail—cycling through them until my eyes grew bleary.

I hadn't realized how frighteningly different the sounds were only two rooms away. The house shifted unfamiliarly. The creaking came from different spots than I was used to. The occasional car passing by now sounded oddly distorted, too close.

The sprinklers erupting to life startled me to wakefulness. They sounded like they were going off right next to me. Just as I learned to tone them out, they stopped.

It wasn't until I heard the unmistakable sound of the screen door slowly sliding open, that general fear became frozen panic.