The Visitor

Chapter 1, The Visitor

Josh slept on the living room futon on Saturday night.

Alone, this banishment would not be worthy of note due to its mundane causes, such as cold-induced snorage or occasional flareups of restless leg syndrome. However, Saturday was different due to the incident at 4 AM.

His first memory was of being woken by the sound of 'sniffing' and 'snuffling', right beside his head. Dismissed as a dream, his continued doze was again interrupted by rustling in the kitchen, which was only a few feet from where he lay. Something or someone (not Heather) was busy in the kitchen. Josh quickly propped himself up on his elbow and peered through the darkness. Without the glasses that lay useless by the bed upstairs, he suddenly perceived an animal's blurred silhouette in the kitchen doorway (artist's impression above). Although the image was hazy, the growling, on the other hand, was clear and persistent.

Without any manner of clothing or the gift of sight, Josh perceived that his only option was to manoeuvre purposefully from the futon and employ the duvet for modesty and protection while bounding up the stairs, using the now-lit stairwell light as a deterrent to the visitor. It worked. By the time he had faced his amused wife who assured him that it was in moments like these that she enjoyed deferring to a traditional gender role by offering to 'stay with the children', the beast had left a mess behind and parted with a precious breakfast croissant Heather had been saving. It made its exit the same way it (and the moths) had arrived, through the wide open back door.

Thus began our 6th wedding anniversary.