The Staredown

I just wrote this story about what happened to me tonight. I guess I just got inspired.


The Staredown
By Odin


The evening had started out quite simple. I had a couple of friends over, nothing out of the ordinary. My friend Doris and I had smoked a pretty fat joint earlier out on my front balcony. The moon was either full or pretty close to it, and it shined like the giant glowing rock in the sky it is. It was a nice night, in the mid sixties. Eventually I got bored with being outside and wanted to go inside and watch TV. We end up watching that late show with David Letterman, it just so happened Johnny Depp was one of the guests tonight. He's always a riot on those talk shows, because I figure most of the time he's high. So Johnny goes on and discusses this and that, while Doris and I work on a couple bowls. After Johnny's spot was over, Doris and and Jessie, my other friend, decided to call it a night. I saw them to the door and started putting away a few things in the living room.

I put everything back in it's spot, being the obsessive compulsive weirdo that I am, and made my way into my bedroom. I stepped in and flipped the light switch. There was a flash and a bizarre electrical noise. I froze in my tracks as the light bulb burned out. A chill came over my body, and I wasn't quite sure why. I'm not afraid of the dark, and the power wasn't out or anything, but I was afraid. I stepped into my room slowly, as if waiting for someone or something in the shadows to leap out at me. My heart was beating a mile a minute and I felt a chill although sweat was forming at my brow.

Something weird was going on. I'm a somewhat superstitious person, I'll admit it. I took into consideration the state of the moon earlier, the fuller the moon the more strange things happen. That's the way it's always been. I put together a plan of action, I'd go get a light bulb and change it. Simple. I walked out into the living room, which was thankfully well lit. Some gentlemen were playing tennis on TV, but I wasn't paying too much attention. I doubt I would pay much attention to tennis on TV at any time though. I commandeered the light bulb from a desk lamp I don't use very much, and made my way hesitantly back into my room. I have two light fixtures that hang down, they each have their own switch which makes it so you can either have both come on when you flip the switch on the wall, or only one. I had it set to turn just one, so, all I had to do was climb up onto the bed, which was directly below the light fixture, and turn the other fixture on. It would give me ample light while I changed the other bulb.

My fears subsided a bit when I managed to work out my plan. It kept my mind off whatever weird omen I may or may not be receiving with the bulb going out in the first place. Before I went back into my room to execute the plan, I realized I still felt quite uneasy. Something was going on. It was the sort of feeling you hear about someone getting while something bad is happening to someone close to them. I began to feel a bit paranoid, more than the effects of the joint and couple of bowls earlier, I'm sure. I grabbed my cell phone from the coffee table and called Doris. Call me crazy, but I wanted to make sure nothing had happened to them on their way home. Doris answered. It was a little tough to speak with my heart still beating like a drum and my stomach in a knot. I asked her if anything strange had happened in the last couple of minutes. She said no, and I felt like a downright fool. I sheepishly finished the call and said goodbye, not having much more to say. I didn't dismiss the feeling something bad was in the air, just that particular scenario. I put the phone down and went into my room to change the bulb.

I stepped up onto the bed, which is quite high off the ground, a good couple of feet. The room has high ceilings, which gave me a bit of vertigo as I peered up at the hanging light fixtures. They were both composed of an ornate chain with a bulb at the bottom enclosed in a glass fixture. I reached up and turned on the working light. As the room lit up I looked over to the burnt out bulb and the bad feeling returned like a sack of bricks falling on me. Right there inches from my face, resting on the very edge of the light fixture was a wasp. It didn't move, and I honestly couldn't tell which way it was facing. I just stood there for a moment, perfectly still, just like the wasp. I think possibly we were having the equivalent of a stare down. I slowly stepped down off the bed and rushed out of the room. I had to kill it.

I couldn't just whack it with a magazine, because it was on the very edge, and it'd just swat him off and make him angry. I had to figure out some way to sort of pinch him in the middle of something, like being closed in a book. Operating on this principal, I decided I'd use two books and smack them together around the wasp to kill it. I'd have to do it very fast. I walked to the bookshelf and looked at the various hardback books I had. I decided to use a copy of the Holy Bible, and a Bible atlas. There had to be some sort of divine power in the books that would be helpful. I gave each one a quick blessing and went to my task.

I went back into my room, the wasp was still there, taunting me. I walked up slowly. I wouldn't' have to get back on the bed, I could just reach up high enough to get it. I slowly raised my arm and prepared for the strike. I was like a coiled snake, ready to lunge out and bite some unsuspecting prey. I took a breath and swung my arms upward, clapping the two books together loudly. I blinked as they came together, instinctively. The same instincts compelled me to keep slamming the book together, about six times total. The enemy was defeated. I looked around me to make sure there were no disembodied wasp pieces twitching around on the floor around me. The coast looked clear. I looked back up at the light fixture and saw a little piece of wing. Weird. Was it floating up there somehow? I looked closer and saw it. The wing was stuck up there, just like the wasp had been. Surrounding the light fixture was a spider's web. My prey was already someone else's prey. A spider was somewhere in the corner of my room laughing at me.

How the mighty have fallen.

 

Thanks for all the kind words, guys. Hopefully inspiration will strike me again soon and I'll have another tale for you.