That Night Was Perfect.

The initial alarm didn’t startle him like it used to, barely noticed it anymore. He pulled himself seamlessly through the bedroom window and walked over to the blinking keypad mounted above a ceramic bowl that was filled with miscellaneous keys and loose change. The back-door was a faded royal blue slab of cheap wood with a tiny peephole, he could just kick it down if he wanted to, but he never did. He did not wish to make her life hard, he loved her unconditionally. 

He’s performed this exact routine daily for the past few months now, each time the sun surrendered to the soil. Muscle memory in his fingertips punched over the rubber buttons before the second siren rang out, 0-0-0-0, then laughed to himself, appreciative and smitten at the little reminder of her reliable simplicity and naivety. Of course, he knew he had two more warning signals before the home-safety system would send an alert text to her phone; he only let this happen when he wanted her to come home immediately, but today he would wait. He had developed a sort of patience, specifically for her, through this process. In the beginning, he needed to be in total control of the situation, but over time he had fallen in love with the raw beauty expressed by her unpredictability and carelessness when she believed she was truly alone in her house. 

A confirmation beep abruptly silenced the intruder outcry and prompted an apologetic message over the speakers for disturbing the peace. 

“I forgive you” he whispered with a smirk, acknowledging the alarm system was only doing its job and hoping the same mercy would be granted towards him after he must do his. 

The single-story structure stood shamefully and scrubbish, squished between two renovated, gentrified cottages along the pot-hole-infested street. Dead grass and a 4x4 concrete patio in need of power washing sat caged in by a silver-wired fence only a few feet tall – the landlord’s mom used to live in the house and kept a few large, pit bulls as guard dogs instead of a home-safety system. Maybe if she had a dog like the old lady she would be safe, maybe she would have been left alone. 

He didn’t like dogs, so he was always thankful.

She turns off all the main lights when she leaves, but never the lamps; she is afraid of coming home to complete darkness. New to a city where she knew not a soul, and in seemingly aimless pursuit of her dream career, she felt like she was unconsciously tethered to a tortuous ebb and flow between the purest states of existentialism and ecstasy. He understood these kinds of feelings, feelings of floating, feelings of nothingness. 

She struggled to get out the way she used to back home, things were different here – very different. She spent most days at the library working on her resume and stuffing her brain with facts she felt like her college professors should’ve taught her, that’s where he first saw her. She was lonely, lonelier than he knew then. Sometimes he pitied her more than he loved her. 

That night was perfect. The night, months ago, when they left their clothes on the coat hanger, spun around one another gracefully down the hall, gay and carefree, twisting and turning like eager virgin lovers on top of the quilt her mother made her before she left for college. He didn’t know the quilt’s origin story that first time – he learned that after listening to her cry on the phone for hours one night, wailing into the patchwork, telling the other end how she wanted to die.  It was “unlike both of them” apparently, to go so far, so fast, but it didn’t feel foreign at all – it felt wholly the opposite. She felt like something he had not been close to in a long time, she felt like security. That night was perfect. 

He had a few favorite spots in the house: the bathroom closet, under the bed, in the laundry room, and behind the green tweed couch in the living room. They played this game every night, the two souls flawlessly dancing around the limited square footage with an intrinsic magnetism – he had absolute faith in their romantic rendezvous. He enjoyed being in such intimate contact with her most vulnerable setting, and he loved, more than anything, to watch her. But there was more than observation on his agenda that night and he had to follow through. His wristwatch suddenly shrieked at the sight of seven o’clock, and his thumb slid to the left side to mute the disruption.

“Perfect, she will be home soon,” he said to himself, in her dimly lit bedroom. He made a final scan of his stage, and everything was in place. 

He dropped his stomach to the floor and used his elbows and knees to shimmy under the bleach-stained, yellow bed skirt, his first post for the evening. She would be here soon, his palms still got clammy for her. He was uncomfortable, near disgusted, with how much love he had begun fostering for her since they first met. 

 Already painting the picture of that night again in his head, he allowed himself the imaginary indulgence and closed his eyes to see it better.  Submersed in the nostalgic memory, he didn’t even notice the simultaneous clink of light bulbs, the sudden halt to the window air-conditioning unit, the slowing of the ceiling fans to a full stop, or the front porch of every house on the street go black. Only when the earth shook and bucked below him, he snapped back to reality, which now consisted of only thick darkness and eerily, thin silence. 

He checked the clock on his arm, it read 7:55PM. 

“Where the hell is she?” he thought out loud. 

It is still pitch black, it is still so quiet. He pulled his forearms inward to prop his chest up off the rug and took a deep breath in that was accompanied by a strange, unsettling sensation that reverberated throughout his body upon his exhale. He contemplated getting out from under the bed. He wasn’t afraid of the dark, or at least he didn’t think he was, but at this moment the absence of light began to wrap around his body and choke him. His chest tightened and his skin got cold. Was this bizarre feeling all in his head, just temporary performer’s anxiety – something he had predicted would occur on account this would be his first time ever going through with his fantasy (he had prepared a mantra to repeat to himself if these nervous feelings did arise), or was there something actually in the air? He took another deep breath in and this time he could taste it too, chemicals. Before he could try and identify the ick in the air, his attention was diverted. 

The sirens slammed violently against the walls inside and shook the windows frantically, the atmosphere was electrified instantly. It was coming from outside, in the sky. He had never heard these repeating sounds before, but the warning they heeded was obvious and inescapable, he had to get up and move – now. He didn’t even care if she saw him there, the rapidly-evolving situation began to demand his full attention. He blindly shoved his pudgy, hairy fists down to the bottom of his book bag (pass the rope, pass the duct tape, pass the gag ball, pass the blindfold), and he rummaged around the deepest lining of the leather sack. 

“Phone, phone, phone, phone…”, he hurriedly muttered under his breath, which was growing hotter with his increasing heart rate. A familiar, square illumination against his fingertips brought an unconscious smile to his face and a wave of numbness through his spine. 

8:15 PM. Switch Off Airplane Mode. 

Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.

He froze and stared blankly, confused at the fully decorated notifications screen. It seemed to be a vicious blend of news updates and calls from distant relatives. He tapped in his passcode, 0-0-0-0, and attempted to read the first message that popped up. But he was interrupted.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. 

Gunfire. Shots. He may not have known what the other strange noises had been that night, but he was accustomed to the chords of violence, a trigger being pulled and people screaming out for the dead, very well, too well. Everything around him was black, everything was close and far away at the same. He strained his eyes desperately to adjust to the abyss directly in front of him, now he was certain he was afraid of the dark. The cacophony of chaos boiling out and steaming from every corner began to disintegrate the barriers that seemed to give him momentary security, and the house began to crumble on top of him like stacked cards against an epic wind. He desperately wanted to scream, release this rush of insanity physically, maybe even cry out her name. Where was she? Was she in danger? His lips parted, but before he could cough up any vocals at all, he heard more bangs, different bangs. It was coming from the front door. 

Faintly, below the orchestra of terror, he could hear a set of keys jangle soft and rapid, harmonizing with wild, raw hyperventilation, a true symphony of stochasticity. The front door burst wide open, unloading the full force of the outside volume inside, and dumping her directly at his feet. Her presence was his heroin, with immediate, intoxicating effects, she made everything bad go away. He knew she would come for him, he trusted her, and he loved her unconditionally. 

“I’m so glad you could make it”,  he said, “I’ve been waiting for you.”