Sometime in the wee hours of the night, I drifted out of a dream in which I was grocery shopping while being followed by my parents and a small chorus of other people performing Handel’s Messiah. They were really doing a fantastic job and I appreciated that they understood how much it meant to me being able to attend their performance and shop for my cow for the week aka milk at the same time. But then I was called out the performance, and out of sleep entirely, because I could hear someone tapping the computer keys outside our bedroom door. I listened for several minutes until I was quite sure that my ears were not deceiving me and I was not dreaming.
Yep, there it was……someone slowly typing away. A clicking, a clacking of the keys being pecked in no particular spellings inched into our room. Kind of sinister, don’t you think? An axe murderer who wakes his unsuspecting victims by striking eerie and ominous letters on the keyboard. {{Shudder}}
Finally, I called for backup.
I nudged Mark and said, “Is someone on the computer?”
He paused for a listen. “No,” he said confidently. I think he was happy to hear something insane come out of my mouth in the middle of the night, instead of his (he has been known to fight dinosaurs in his sleep.)
“I’m not dreaming,” I said.
“Oh, okay,” he said and rolled back over. He learned that trick from me.
“Can’t you hear it? It’s like someone’s hunting and pecking.”
“Nobody is in the house,” he said, “typing on the computer.”
“Well is it Brendan or Jillian? Or maybe a mouse is on the desk? That's it, it is a mouse!”
We sat in the quiet dark and listened.
No typing.
After a few more seconds, I rested my head back on my pillow and tried to go back to sleep. Mark readjusted his pillow and refolded the covers (he is very particular about this, even in his sleep.)
Several minutes later, as I was trying to get back to my grocery shopping and personal mobile performance of Handel’s Messiah, I heard Mark muttering.
“It does sound like the keyboard,” he said.
“You hear it?”
I paused. I couldn’t hear it.
“I don’t hear it anymore,” I said.
“I can hear it,” he said.
“Do you think it’s a mouse?” I asked. “Or a murderer?”
“Neither.”
“OK. What is it?”
"I don't know. I am sure it is nothing. Maybe something outside." he said, not quite convinced.
But much to my extreme pleasure, we woke up this morning un-murdered. The kids still in bed and there are no mouse droppings anywhere in the house.
I guess it was outside —Mr. Windy in the office with the candlestick.
Whew! That was a close one.
