ill do it one second
They told him the house was haunted. They told him the house was
strange. Five families had moved in, and never made it out. Alive
anyway. He had already survived two days with his family. His second
night in his new home, what could possibly happen?
A whispered name.
The boy stirs in his sleep. A pale, vaporous moon lights the room.
Shadows are deep. He twists his head, turning towards the window so
that his face becomes a soft mask, unblemished, colourless. But the
boy’s dream is troubled; beneath his lids, his eyes dart to and fro.
The whispered name:
‘Daniel….’
Its sound is distant.
The boy frowns; yet the voice is within his own slumber, a silky
calling inside his dream. His arm loosens from dampened bedclothes,
his lips part in a silent murmur. His floating thoughts are being
drawn towards consciousness. The protest trapped in his throat like a
form, emerges as he wakens. And he wonders if he has imagined his own
cry as he stares through the glass at the insipid moon.
There is, in his heart, a dragging sorrow that seems to coagulate the
blood, so that movement in the veins is slothful and wearisome.
Somehow, making all effort to exit a ponderous, perhaps even hopeless
affair. But the whispering, almost sibilant, voice dispels much of
that inner lassitude.
‘…Daniel…’ it calls again.
And he knows its source, and that knowledge causes him to shudder.
