The Woman Upstairs

Well met, truthseekers. I hope that the evening finds you well. Tonight's tale comes to us from Biomorbosis

Has it ever happened to you that you wake up and it takes you a while to figure out where you are? I'm very familiar with that feeling. Growing up under the wing of a single mother, I am really used to sleep in many different places, like my dad's place during the weekends, his parents' house now and then, my other grandparents' place during the week, and such. 

Did I mention my mom is single? That also includes a big lot of houses I've lived in. She was (and still is) a very ambitious woman -in that way a poor young mother can be- so she always sought for the better present and future, for herself and for me. Always working in the day, studying in the night, getting certificates, qualifications and degrees, taking different jobs, moving into better (or cheaper) houses and apartments, taking me away from one school to another, and keeping me alive with her cold cold heart but very strong belief in my ability of becoming a successful, independent woman myself. I know, not pressure, right? 

I got distracted. The whole point was to tell you about me being always confused when I wake up. And a little bit of my emotional background. 

So that takes me to the other night when I was scrolling down reddit, letting the hours run along because I suck at time managing and at staying healthy, resulting in me having to take a pill for my flu like at 4 am. It was two in the morning already and I was losing the doze battle, plus having weird thoughts from the stories I was reading mixed with my breathing difficulties. Then, in the middle of a sentence, I closed my eyes for a second and floated away on a soft warm cloud, I floated and breathed and relaxed and everything was good. 

You know that feeling? Like you pleasantly fade away into your own unconsciousness, and nothing of what you were previously doing matters anymore, and you don't want it to stop. But then something wakes you up and you wanna punch that something in the face. Just like that I woke up, abruptly, perhaps just five seconds after falling asleep. 

It was my neighbor from upstairs, probably just arriving home, drunk, stupid and loud, knocking her heels on the wood, carpetless floor. This behaviour was repetitive and exhausting, although I had managed to ignore it for the sake of my privacy and peace. But come on, this time it was like 3 am and some people has to work early in the morning, for fuck's sake. If I get to see her tomorrow, I thought, I'll politely tell her to get a goddamn carpet or I would let know the building's administration about a noisy neighbor I had. 

Wait. What building? 

There it was again. Waking up confusion. Like a second waking up, I open my eyes again, and think... Where am I? I look around in the dark and see my bed, my nightstand, my window from where I could see the house across the street. Right, a house. I'm living in a house and I don't have any upstairs neighbors -just the old dusty power cables, in the attic. 

What woke me up? 

I force myself to wake up fully and try to listen with more attention. Knock. Knock knock knock. Well, that really sounds like some erratic person on heels. And considering that my bedroom is right below the attic -I'm sure this time- this freaks me the fuck out. Ignoring all of my surviving instincts, I get out of the bed and try to listen from closer. But when I put my feet on the floor, the old wood squeaks and the noise from above suddenly stops. It heard me, it knows that I heard it. And it's scared. 

Sometimes, when I'm falling asleep, I think I can hear those heels over me. Softly scratching the wood, sometimes knocking on it -desperate but quietly. I actually feel that it's terrified of me. Now and then it makes me nervous to hear it, but I know that there's nothing to be seriously afraid about. It is probably just a rat trying to chew on the wires, scratching and knocking off things, making fun of me -perhaps making a nest and giving birth to more wire chewing little rats. 

Or maybe it is just my mom, trying to untie the tight knots I made around her throat with those same fucking wires.

Oh my. Well, that certainly took an unexpected turn. I hope that the noises you hear as you're lying down tonight are just a rat. Sweet dreams, truthseekers.