The Ghost and the Darkness

I can hear him, but I can’t see him. The sliding and pounding reverberates through the hardwood floors.

He can be anywhere by now. And he’s on the hunt.

I’m lying on the floor, my scalp tingling from a fresh attack. As quickly as he came, he is gone. Like a whirlwind of tiny hands and teeth and nails, he strikes without warning before moving on to another part of his territory.

He doesn’t nap. He doesn’t rest. He has no fear.

This – thing – is not the sweet, small child I once new. He is malice and destruction made manifest. And he is hunting everything in the house.

I can’t stop him. I can barely contain him. There is no cage strong enough to keep him from moving, no amount of bargaining that bring him to a halt. He has an endless appetite for danger now, and nothing I do can satiate him.

I have to get up. I can hear him, in the distance, opening up the cabinets. He knows how to use doorknobs now. He knows how to get around the intricate traps and barriers we set for him. He’s learning.

I tiptoe into the kitchen, and he spots me instantly. The water bowl, the ones the cats need to survive, becomes a weapon. I slide over the pool of water meant to deter me and finally grab him before he can toss the recycling can at me.

But now that I have him in my grasp, the real struggle begins. When you tempt a storm, you reap the whirlwind.

The tiny devil lashes out at me – all swinging limbs and a piercing cry. He writhes and kicks and howls in an attempt to warn me, but my safety is not my concern. I must stop him, before everything we know is tossed asunder. He turns against my arms, and his tiny teeth find my shoulder. Reflexively, I push him up and away from my body, holding him high in the air.

He giggles. Because my pain is his entertainment now. My exhaustion gives him strength.

I set him down in the living room, safely in the confines of his containment once more. As I step over the boundary, he grabs a foot. I barely escape with my life. I retreat to the kitchen, and as I turn my back I hear it. The wall is moving.

He’s on the hunt again.