04:22

A disturbance;

Something stirs you

And you lay,

dazed and dry-mouthed.

Reach for the glass beside you

And knock it over.

It softly thuds onto carpet, but

You hear another noise too.

A knock, or perhaps a distant voice?

You cannot place it. You lay, arm outreached

and grasping at the fallen glass, silent and still,

Listening for the sound again.

You think you hear it. How can you not be sure?

A knock, or maybe some kind of click.

Your cold arm retreats back underneath

As you wait once more

For confirmation of the sound

Nothing,

Nothing,

And then -

You hear it.

Indeterminate, as before, but more real and more audible than nothing.

You cannot hope to sleep now

With the quasi-presence of a half-fear

Lingering in your room; and your mind.

Is that a shirt hung on the door, or a hooded spectre looming?

Is that rap at the window a tree branch, or malicious interloper?

In the dark hours, nothing is certain

And doubt casts a mighty shadow

Over an already shadowed world.