Death in the night

Sleep caught me,
It always works that way.
Awake, then reality slips.

Reality.

A child, in my bed.
I had to be, maybe seven.
Young, yet the memory so crisp.

I open my eyes.
The scene.

Moonlit room.
My chair, no longer tucked carefully under the desk.
No.

It faces me.
And there she sits.

Hands bound.
Legs bound.
Mouth taped shut.
Eye’s behind a cloth.

And there they walk.
Circling the young girl.
Black robes.
Grim reapers.
Death, circling the girl.

I scream.
I scream for my mom.

Enter the scene,
Mom.

In panic, another nightmare,
Down in the books.

The girl disappears, my chair, back to the desk.

Mom.
It’s okay.

But death.
Death!

As I speak to my mom,
Death mocks me.

As I speak to my mom,
Death stalks me.

In the hall,
Behind her silhouette,
Pace, the grim reapers.

I sit there,
Awake.

Scene,
Room back to normal,
Mom standing in the door.

But death,
Pacing behind her.
Unnoticed in the hall.

And I remember it to this day.
And I don’t know the girl.
And there she was.
And there they were.

And here I sit,
Recounting that night.
Seven years old,
Just a child in my bed.

And death,
Death mocks me.