Hello? Is Someone There?

I’ve been having the CRAZIEST nightmares again. I used to have them in high school and early 20’s but I they’ve subsided in recent years only to return last year. So Monday, March 17 – St Patrick’s Day – I was home sick. I took Eric to work because I wanted to have the car just in case I needed to go to the doctor.

When I got home, I lay down on the living room couch for about an hour and then decided to go let the dogs out from the basement. As I walked through my kitchen toward the back stairs, I had an eerie feeling and double checked that the back door was locked.

As I headed down the stairs, I saw immediately that Casey’s kennel was not in its rightful place (on top of Tamika’s kennel). As I got to the bottom of the stairs I saw his kennel at the other side of the room facing the back wall, on its side. My first thought was that as he was getting in or out of the kennel, it wobbled and fell off with him still in it and perhaps he moved it in a panic to get out. It seemed rather far from its correct location, but it seemed a stretch to feasibility.

Then I noticed that one of the doors to a room was opened. It’s the room that houses our computers and other office supplies. It wasn’t opened wide enough for any of the dogs to get into, but I know we shut it when we left.

I decided to call Eric and discuss this – to be sure we really did check the door. I was kind of creaped out as I stood in front of the fallen kennel (which was near the opened door). Eric answered the phone and I began to tell him of Casey’s kennel when the phone made a digital-like beep and then died. I looked at the phone, thinking the battery must be dead, but it was full charged and for the first time, the eeriness turned to fear.

I called Eric right back and as he answered, the curtain that hides the closet-sized room with the hot water heater and the furnace began to wave back and forth. At the same time my heart sank with that movement, Eric asked me if I had checked the locks and rooms for anybody.

I sank back against the wall as my imagination walked away with all rational thoughts and left me in a panic. A gazillion scenarios ran through my head. INTRUDER! But the dogs were fairly calm – shaken, no doubt about it, but calm. I opened all the doors in the basement in a fury to check that all was right. It’s odd what you see after this kind of fear. Little things seemed out of place – a book that I was sure was on my desk was now on the chair. The remote controls that are usually left in their pocket on the couch are left carelessly on the table. Little things.

Ultimately, I double checked the locks and decided upstairs was a safer bet, surrounded by my dogs. You have to get past them to get to me, right? So what I’d hoped as a restful recovery from my sinuses was a jumpy jittery day aware of ALL sounds in the neighborhood.
This was my daily shot: