Attaque

It’s dark… too dark. I reach out with my arms trying to navigate my way through the space and immediately stumble and dive. My work withered hands break my fall, and— thrust, parry, riposte, I am run through, with a splinter the size of a tree branch… the weapon that bested me— a floor laid a hundred years ago, made of what is now splintering fir wood.

Feeling around I find my opponent. I was felled by a fetid size twelve, men’s athletic shoe. If I had been on my game, I would have smelled it long before I entered the room.

To better deflect further assault, I decide to stay low. On all fours I worm past a random assortment of flip flops, back packs, bohemian hobo bags, a dish…

Impact—My head has made contact with hard plastic, setting off an avalanche of folded laundry. I claw my way out of the tomb of clothes that should have been put away…

Have I stumbled upon a crime scene? I continue my advance. I’ve come to a fork in the road. Actually not the road, it’s a fork in the shag rug, and it has impaled my knee, puncturing my support hose. My mind replays a line from the movie Psycho: “Mother, Oh God! Mother! Blood! Blood!”

My shoulder finally brushes against the wall that I’ve been navigating my way toward. I carefully stand, feeling for the light switch. I flick it on, gasp, and turn it back off. Back down to all fours, I blindly crawl toward the stairs.

It is summer. I have three teenagers and two dogs. One daughter is asleep on the sofa, surrounded by chaos in the form of laundry, snack wrappers, and other miscellaneous misplaced items. I will plan my counter attack in the morning.
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The Daily Post, July 8, 2015, Daily Prompt: Clean Slate~ Explore the room you’re in as if you’re seeing it for the first time. Pretend you know nothing. What do you see? Who is the person who lives there?<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/clean-slate/”>Clean Slate</a><a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/clean-slate/”>Clean Slate</a>