Creative writing submission from the Rest Less community – submit your entry here.
I’ve always been a light sleeper, well, a poor sleeper in fact. The slightest noise or change in the atmosphere around me and I’m awake. If you combine that with a bladder which appears to sleep all day but then prod me with the pointy end of an umbrella every two hours at night, and I spend a great deal of the night awake, when I should in fact be sleeping.
I literally can’t remember the last time I went to bed and slept the night through, but what I do know, thinking about it now, is that we’re definitely talking over 40 years. That’s shocked even me and I’m living with it! Anyway, when my dog Arthur first developed dementia, I found that like a mother with a baby, I was on tenterhooks the whole time, terrified that he might wander about and fall down the stairs (which he did once) in the dark.
To solve the problem, I purchased a number of small, battery operated, motion sensor lights which I placed up the stairs and along the hallways. They were a revelation. Not only did they prevent accidents for small dogs, but the lights coming on actually acted like tiny alarms for me, gently waking me and alerting me every time he was wandering around. An added bonus was that when I got up in the night myself, I didn’t have to switch the main lights on i.e. cheaper electricity bills.
Ever since I owned German Shepherd dogs who always chose to sleep at the top of the stairs on the landing, looking down to the front door, I learned to leave my bedroom door open. The head of my bed always faces out, meaning that with my head on the pillow, I can look out into the hall. Inevitably, as Arthur’s condition worsened, I did have to keep the door closed, but I hated it as I never felt safe.
To explain, although all the doors downstairs are closed each night in case there’s a fire, fire alarms are in the hallways, and there’s an alarm on the front door, having my bedroom door open keeps me alert. Having the dogs with me too, I believe (fingers crossed) that should something be amiss downstairs, I or the dogs would immediately hear/sense something and wake up, hopefully giving me time to act.
Since my sad loss of Arthur, I’m once again sleeping with my bedroom door wide open and last night I woke up at exactly 3:05 AM. Facing the hall, I was immediately aware of a faint glow downstairs which, as I watched, began to very slowly move up the stairs as each automatic light was triggered. There was no sound and neither of my highly reactive and gobby dachshunds woke, but as I quickly got out of bed and grabbed my dressing gown, the light continued to silently move upstairs.
Terrified, I switched my main bedroom light on and deliberately made a noise, waking the dogs, and started talking loudly as I grabbed the phone to dial 999 (hoping to frighten any intruder off and back downstairs). The top stair light came on and only seconds later, as I was stood there watching, the light in the middle of the hall, right outside my door, also came on. It was as if something was coming straight towards me – but there was nothing there!
I quickly hung up the phone as it was clear that the hall was empty. And as neither dog was in the slightest bit perturbed, rolling over and going back to sleep, I gingerly stepped out towards the bannister. Phone still in hand, two nines patched in just in case, I looked over the bannister towards the hall downstairs. From the landing I could clearly see a light on in the hall downstairs by the radiator and all the lights on the stairs were illuminated.
As I stared, they timed out, one after the other, the darkness gently sweeping back in. In those few seconds I’d clearly seen that there was absolutely no sign of anything, no-one, nothing that could have set the lights off. There was no intruder, no small dachshund that’d wandered downstairs, no giant spider in hobnail boots – literally nothing!
Confused, I switched the hall light on and went downstairs to check all the windows and doors. This revealed nothing as they were all safe and secure. Turning the light off in the downstairs hall, I went back upstairs, each stair light coming on as I approached – absolutely bizarre! Visiting the bathroom before going back to bed, I crept under the covers completely bemused. Did I imagine it? Absolutely not.
I was wide awake from the moment that first light came on downstairs. Do I have any idea what could’ve triggered them….nope! They aren’t positioned so that one coming on triggers the next one, so something has to set them off individually. I specifically positioned them like this and, indeed, it hasn’t happened once in the whole 18 months I’ve had them. What was even odder was the way that each one was triggered slowly, so that the light gradually made its way up the stairs as I watched horrified.
I have to say, I’m not easily spooked, but I was literally terrified. I was thinking the worst (i.e. human invasion which, like many people, is the real fear). The strange thing is, this bizarre incident isn’t an isolated affair as there’ve been a couple of odd things that’ve happened lately. Whilst I was writing at my computer downstairs in the middle of the day, there was a really loud bang upstairs, setting off the dogs. It sounded like a large mirror or picture had fallen off the wall, and I do have several, but racing upstairs (OK an exaggeration, hip considered) I discovered absolutely nothing.
Going from room to room, there was no sign of anything out of place, no smashed glass on the carpet, no object toppled. Being a semi-detached house I put it down to the fact that it must’ve been from next door, though I would’ve sworn an oath that it came from my own property.
And again, only last week I distinctly heard something in the kitchen moving the dog bowls about. As I’ve had a cheeky seagull come inside my kitchen twice, I assumed my feathered friend had returned hoping for a quick snack. Getting up and going into the kitchen, I immediately saw that the back door was closed and the bowls were undisturbed, but a melon from the fruit bowl was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. No tectonic movement detected, I was at a complete loss.
I can’t pretend I’m looking forward to more events but, strangely, I’m almost half expecting them. It doesn’t feel in the least bit spectral as there’s never been anything like that in this house, outside yes, but not inside and I know I’d know. Goodness knows what’ll happen next. All I can say is, watch this space!
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