Portents of Doom

12:03 am

 After 3 days of non-stop screaming, crying, stomping, and other forms of mild hysteria, I finally got the newspaper to the printer, and it was ready for delivery.  I could finally get some rest! 

 Just as I hit that REM sleep phase that always seems to elude me, the clock turned to this evil combination of numbers, and the sound of glass shattering and a huge thud awoke me.  Naturally when I hear glass breaking at 12:03 am, being the genius I am I jumped out of bed, completely naked, barefoot, and without a weapon to confront whatever was happening in the other room.  Yes, I ran full force, naked and defenseless toward a pile of broken glass and whatever caused it.

 As I rounded the corner, I was bewildered to find absolutely nothing.  There was no glass that I could see; nothing seemed out of place.  I do have to admit that at this point I was unable to turn on the lights to investigate thoroughly.  I had left the blinds open to let the breezes come in, and the neighbors who were all awake, had as well.  I was on the horns of a dilemma.  Do I find out what happened by turning on the lights and show my birthday suit to the neighbors, or do I just assume that since there is no immediate danger, it was either:

 

1.  A dream

2.  The burglar/axe murderer/raccoon managed to escape and cleaned up the mess before they left.

3.  The burglar/axe murderer/raccoon was hiding in the shadows waiting for me to go back to sleep so they could finish me off.

 

As long as I got to go back to sleep I was fine with any of those options. 

 

6:03 am

 Another dream shattering crash, but this time I am more prepared.  When I went back to bed after the first incident I decided that if it was option three, I did not want to be found mutilated and naked, so I put on my garden gnome pajamas.  I was also a little more rested, and able to think semi-clearly.  I put on my flip-flops before I went out yet again to face the unknown.

 Rounding the corner to the living room, again, I saw nothing out of place.  No windows broken, no door ajar, nothing.   How can this be? I wondered aloud.  I looked around for Jackson, who was happily asleep as usual on his back, running in his sleep on the sofa. 

 Am I going crazy? Hearing things?

 In the dining room I discovered that two of the four framed photographs above the buffet were missing their glass, and that the glass was shattered in to about 8 billion pieces on the top of the buffet and behind it; not all over the floor, but on the white top of the buffet, almost invisible. 

 How do two separate framed photographs just lose their glass?   I don’t know, but I do watch a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I know things like this are usually portents or signs of doom and evil.  Buffy’s mom once had some trouble with art she hung on the wall, and Zombies began to invade her house.  I didn’t think they could come through the window since I am on the second floor with a security door, and zombies rarely ring the buzzer- I figured I was relatively safe there, so I wondered… “What other evil is upon me?”

 

7:35 am

 

The Evil Appears

 I was standing on the Platform waiting for my train.  The “attention customers, an inbound train toward the loop will be arriving shortly” message had just pealed out into the misty morning when I saw the bright lights of the train piercing the fog.

 As the Green Line train to 63^rd/Ashland screeched into the stop, it was immediately clear that this would be the ride from Hell.  Apparently there had been a delay at the Harlem stop.  Trains are scheduled every 8 minutes on the Green line, so a 40 minute delay basically means that the car was filled with 5 times it’s normal load of passengers.  

 A diabolical combination of forces had taken over the L-train.  The weather, the delay and the sheer number of people had caused the windows of the train to be completely fogged.  Passengers inhaling and exhaling, sweating, coughing, burping their coffee & cigarette burps, the cacophony of perfume and cologne created a haze that filled the train.  When the doors opened, the haze formed the face of an evil demon and it laughed as it sucked me into it’s gloom bellowing, “The doors are about to close.”

 So, pressed up against the doors that could potentially fly open at any moment and spit me out onto the electrified tracks, I grabbed onto the nearest stationary object to brace myself, and prayed silently to God to let everyone on that train be getting off at the Central stop.  But no, more people got on. 

 Now I am in the middle of the train with nothing to hold onto.  Not that it would have done any good to have something to grab since my arms were at that point pinned at my sides by other people crushed up against me.

 Did I mention that it was about 176 degrees in the train, and it felt like I was breathing through a wet, dirty baby diaper that had been sitting in the sun for a few days? 

 As we jostled on toward our destination, which at this point I was sure was going to be the mouth of hell, the train came to a complete stop and the demon formed its gruesome face in the haze again and shouted “we are standing still momentarily waiting for signal clearance, we expect to be moving again shortly.”

 Demons lie.  We all know this, but I still held out hope that we would in fact be moving shortly.  We wouldn’t.    We sat perfectly still, for no less than 12 minutes.  This would not seem like a long time under any other circumstances, but it felt like an eternity. 

 I chose to be uncharacteristically calm, closed my eyes and thought about strawberry ice cream.  Some of my fellow passengers stood quietly as well, some read books, some texted, one farted, and to my dismay, one decided this was the perfect time to make a phone call to her friend Trina. 

 Apparently, Trina and her husband are going through a rough patch, which was recently compounded by the fact that Trina was newly diagnosed with Chlamydia.  “Oh girl, he gave you Chlamydia? Oh Trina honey, divorce his ass today! Oh, it wasn’t him that gave it to you? All right, but still, damn, Chlamydia.” 

 I begged out loud for the Demon to just take me.  I offered my soul, my first-born child.  I would kidnap a baby and give it to him to eat. “Ask it oh evil one and your will shall be done. Just PLEASE make the torment end” I shouted into the train.

 As soon as I had finished my pact with evil, the red light on the wall began to flash and the demon face appeared in the mist again and shouted “this train will run express and will be making no more stops until Clinton.”   The hell was ending.  In a few short minutes, we were at the Clinton stop, and 80% of the people got off of the train.

 So, now I am a minion of evil, blood pact all signed and sealed.  I hope this is a multi-ride deal, and because I will be tormented for eternity in the afterlife, I get seats to myself, and lots of crazies to write about until I have to pay my debt in hell.  

 When pictures start jumping off of walls, and you see evil faces in the mist, call a priest, have an exorcism and go back to bed, as these are clearly signs of impending damnation.