Be careful what you wish for ...

Be careful what you wish for ….

He looked beautiful. Everything she wanted. The photos showed images of everything she was looking for. The eyes with the twinkle she craved. The sun on his beautiful face with his strong arms gleaming; water from his swim still shining on his shoulders as he leaned on the edge of the pool and looked into the camera lens. She excitedly clicked on all the images, each one better than the last. There was one image with so much love in it her heart beat faster; it was getting more difficult for her to breathe. The image, so full of love, was showing three beautiful children laughing with him and a small scruffy dog standing on its back legs begging in front of him, reflecting the love of a family in that beautiful moment.

Her words and messages flowed quickly. So did his. Coffee cups with hearts and “I love that too” and “so do I” and “I know, I know” and “yes, I love the mountains” and “yes, me too, I love the sea” and “yes, let's meet as soon as possible, "I wish it was today" … she said ", with laughing emojis. “Do you live alone", he asked. "yes", she said, punctuating her answer with a smiling emoji and a heart.

She kissed one of the images. The one where he was sitting on a chair in the garden, reading a book, which made her even happier, that he had added dimensions, that he was complex.

Smiling non-stop, she ran to get her trainers on for her usual thirty minutes run, but instead of wishing, like she normally did, that she had already finished it and was on her way back into the garden to get her good girl reward of a huge coffee with frothy milk, she ran like the wind, as if she had wings. Exhilarated, she stopped at her special tree, just off the main road on a dirt track leading into the forest. This tree had heard a lot. Fears and anxieties, love and loss, requests for wisdom. The tree had a heart painted on it, which is why she got attached to it in the first place, it meant a lot to her.

She embraced the bark she knew so well. Felt the smoothness of the cut branch with the palm of her hand. She closed her eyes to think about him, still smiling, still happy.

Dark, dark clouds appear, not in the sky; In her stomach. His beautiful face has gone black. It looks evil. She searches hard in her mind for the smile she saw in those beautiful squares, the feelings of anticipation of future love, excitement. They won't come back. They won't come back! She embraces her beautiful tree tighter, pleading for his face to change into the one she loved so much. His face gets more ugly, his eyes, blacker.

She's frightened now. It won't go away. Come on come on, don't be silly, she berates herself for being stupid. She tries to eradicate the fear. It won't go away. The beautiful squares of hope; love, happiness, family, smiles.... replaced, with fear. Fear, foreboding and darkness. Hollow, hollow darkness; and eyes so black she can't see into them.

I am so romantic ladies; I might just arrive at your house unexpectedly, she had read on his profile. She had laughed at that.

She's running now. Heart pumping, fears growing, she knows she's been stupid, Impulsive. Driven by a need to find love, to feel connected.

She does live alone. She told him. He has her phone number. She gave it to him. She doesn't have any close neighbours. She told him when he asked. “Where do you live”? She told him. Oh my god oh my god, oh my god.... she told him……

She jumps at every sound. She chastises herself for being so stupid. Her garden, normally her sanctuary, looks too big now. Too many trees, too many hiding places. Too isolated. Everything she had loved about her home before scares her now; she's wishing she could go back in time, and erase every word she had uttered, every stupid emoji she had expressed herself with.

She hears the sound of a car. She's willing it to pass by her house, but the sound of the gears changing to slow down outside of her gates is unmistakeable.  “Jesus, Jesus”, she keeps repeating, over and over again with every Jesus becoming more extreme and more desperate. She barricades herself downstairs in the bedroom. She can't get the double shutters closed at the French Windows; her terror is stopping her hands from closing the latches. She's grabbed two big knives from the kitchen. Her pepper spray is in her back pocket. She's brought her phone to the bedroom, but she's crying and shaking so much she can't even get the password to work and, in any case, nobody she knows lives here. Nobody can get to her in time. Her WIFI is not good. Her dog is too old to save her.

Her breaths are short and jumpy. Will he hear her breathing? There's nowhere to hide. The latch on her bedroom door is flimsy. The pole she has placed between the bed and the door isn't really long enough or strong enough to keep someone at bay for long.

The sound of her gates moving brings her to near collapse. The last words she had sent him played like a song in her head. I live at.... I live at, I live at, I live at.... I live at....

He never replied after she texted her address. His phone went off. No more coffee cups with hearts. No more communication, no more “I love that too” ....no more anything. Nothing, nothing nothing, just “I live at....” then silence. Oh. my. GOD. Why had she not thought of that at the time!

Sobbing, shaking, she listened as all the obstacles she'd quickly put on the stairs were knocked over...loudly … on purpose. He didn't care. She lived alone. There was nobody that could hear him. He could enjoy himself. She'd told him everything. Everything he needed to know.

He wanted to make his entrance known. He wanted to make his pleasure last. This was going to be good. He smiled and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror as he made his way to the sound of her fear. He looked nothing like the beautiful man in the square images. She didn't know that yet. That was a pleasure he still had in front of him …

He was savouring the moment she would first see him. Every bit of him. In all his glory. The real him, with blackness oozing out of every pore. It would be her last living moment. Enthralled and excited by his closeness to her room, his badness; his madness; his grotesque vileness encompassed him in the persona that made him feel so alive, so right, so at one with his world of degradation, so at one with the blackness that made his head feel as if it would explode with pleasure …

Trembling, shaking, tears streaming down her face, she watched as the latch moved, very, very, slowly. It was one of his party tricks, he always liked it when it made them sob harder, when he could hear their hearts jumping out of their chests, and even better, when he could hear the sound of their terror through their bladders emptying on the floor. Through her sobs, she heard his disgusting voice start to speak through the crack of the door as a shaft of light from the hall entered her dark bedroom.

 " I'm here for my coffee, is it ready yet? He said behind the door in a sing song voice that emphasised the words coffee and ready yet like some sort of grotesque musical performance. “I would have waited for a while, but I thought I'd come over straight away, you seemed so keen to see me. You said you wished it was today. I couldn't keep you waiting now, could I? But you know, sometimes … being greedy and impatient … isn't good for you. You are a greedy girl aren't you. You know, sometimes, you need to be careful what you wish for" ….

The world stopped as she had known it.

With the door now fully open, the light of the hall surrounded his grotesque silhouette and she could see the full vileness of her premonition, she could smell the blackness and the rotting of his soul, his mind, his body.

He came towards her, unable to wait any longer now. Supplies had been low for him lately. How fortuitous to find this stupid imbecile, how glorious, how good his sickness felt, how good it was to get rid of his hatred inside of this maggot.

The world went black. Then piercingly white. She felt the arms of a protector take her upwards, until there was nothing to harm her. Nothing to be afraid of, nothing to stop her breathing; only light and love and peacefulness.

Her old dog barked, and barked. He managed to attract the attention of a passer by who entered the gates as he knew that the girl who lived there was on her own and never left the gates open.

He saw someone run from the property and he found her downstairs. He picked her up gently from the mess on the floor. He knew he shouldn't interfere with a crime scene, but he knew he was doing the right thing. He took her upstairs and laid her in the daisies on the grass in her beautiful garden surrounded by chestnut trees in the warm may evening, before getting out his phone to contact the police.

They sat there together in the daisies, the dead girl, the man and her little dog. He talked gently to her silence and even though he had never met her before, cloaked her in as much love and warmth and protection, as if she were his own. “I love you”, he said. “I love you too”, he heard; just before the sirens awoke him, with a jolt.