ELEVEN STAIRS...

"It was the eyes. Eyes in the night. Eyes that  never blinked..." 

- R. Raphe.

It was close to  dusk. Still light enough to  enjoy.  But soon it would be day's end. A dusk that sweltered and swam with  muggy promise.  The day had been hot. Understatement. A day where all the doors had been left open.  But the heat had stayed. It made even the curtains sag and ice cubes warp. She felt   as if she would melt. Like butter on toast. 

Even the cat felt it. He flopped on the clean wood floor,  looking for coolness. His thick fur lay still as she stroked hm with her toes. He was  like a bowl of bread dough left out in the sun. And there was that sound..........that sound that kept pounding over it all.

BANG! It came at regular intervals.  BANG! She was afraid to go look.

It came from down below. In the cellar. The cellar that she avoided if she could. She didn't like the stairs, for they were old wood and a tad warped. It was dank and quiet and  spoke to her of the old days. The dirt floor harboured something. Something that slithered. Maybe a garter snake. Maybe a spider or two. The smell of mold drifted up .

BANG! Her cat did not move. But she did. Just ever so slightly  she dropped her feet onto the  cool wood floor.

She listened. Her cat rolled over . and sighed. She grabbed a soup ladle from the counter. Her heart beat like a hummingbird.

BANG!  It came again. This time on the eleven stairs that she dreaded so much.

She edged over to the downstairs door. Put her hand against the wood.  BANG! The sound of footsteps on those stairs. She counted them her heart pounding. BANG!

Footsteps on the stairs. Breathing fast she softly turned the skeleton key in the old lock. It clicked. The steps ceased.  Whoever it was had gone away she thought.

Then she remembered, the basement door was open. She'd left it open to help cool down the house. And now someone knew she was here. It had gone quiet. They were waiting for her. She placed her hand on the door. Her sweating fingers  pressed against it.

Her cat rolled back and forth on the kitchen floor. Her ladle shook in her hand.  She must close the basement door. Whoever it was must have left. She called her cat.

Then unlocked the top door, ever so carefully. Ever so silently.  She opened it. Turned on the light. "I'm coming down! John go call the police!"  She had to clear her voice before shouting down into the abyss. John  was her cat's name. Her cat heard his name  and charged down those eleven stairs.

 She inched her way down.  More silence. The cat purred and ran around chasing imaginary flies. His bushy thick coat rubbed up against her feet, BANG! She jumped. 

BANG! it came again. Inside the root cellar. She was not fond of that place. It was a cave, built into the old house, dirt on the floor, and  lined with shelves. Endless shelves of preserves from years gone by. Jams and jellies and cherries  and pears in mason jars, glowing in the single ceiling light bulb.

BANG! Then she saw it.  Eyes bulging. Wings flapping. Shrieking in the dusk that was and ever would be. It's red breast  heaving and tossing as it threw itself  at a jar of cherries. Cherries that were round and bulbous, ready to pop out their jars.  And the thing challenging it   had eyes huge and wild with a yellow beak  that shrieked  in fear.  It smacked at the jar.

The cat, who had followed her, jumped up on the shelf. Scaring the winged creature.  Forcing it to fly out.  Out of  the basement. Out of the house. Into the world that still had light in it. With eyes so big. She locked the basement door. Then the dead bolt. Then the bar. She sighed. She praised her cat for being brave and leaned against the door. Her ladle flopped in her hot hands.

Then she heard  a BANG! From above. She'd left the kitchen door open. BANG! She gathered her courage, and followed John, the cat,  as they climbed up the eleven stairs .....ready to do battle once more.....

Photographs 2023