i'm not sleeping well. i'm woken up by the sound of dog toenails clicking on my floor. i don't have a dog now. maybe it's Josie, my mother's dog. but why is she in my house? i can tell by the sound she is coming into my bedroom and out into the living room but I always, always lock my door (now that I don't have a dog). who opened the door? not that dog. and when? how long has someone been in my house? what's been happening?

this is it. i get up and hurry to my bathroom, seeing the dog that is not my mom's dog, but is smaller, icky, trotting away from me. i lock the bathroom door quickly. i take a pee and get ready. this is it. i arm myself. For some reason I have forks near my sink. i have to be ready to stab, to mean it. i turn around and face down in my bathtub is the intruder, drowned. i am locked in with him. i had no idea that was behind me the whole time. i drop my forks. i struggle with the lock.

i run out into the night.

outside, i am surprised that people are up and doing things. isn't it very, very late? there are at least three men in the street, preening and staring into mirrors. i have called for the police but no one is coming. there is a dead person in my house. someone small enough to fit, stretched out in the tub. brown hair. (this certainly from the phone call of the other night which stirred up everything and enraged me: played. played.)

anyway. i don't know what else. i drift, literally, through the neighborhood, knowing that my home is ruined, seeing people i don't know living out their lives. there is a creepy kind-of Keinholz feeling to it all, faces turning blankly towards me as I float by. I decide to go see my mother since the police still haven't come. (I've called in the meantime and they acted as if it was a new case. "I TOLD you. -- there is someone dead in my house. I can't go home!" "Okay, let me take your information." "But I already TOLD you!")

I go to my mother's house. I try to tell her what happened. I am looking down at her linoleum floor. I feel her presence but am not sure I see her. I cannot speak. I try to say "Mu - Muh- Murder" but my mouth won't even close to form an M. It isn't until then I realize I am paralyzed with fear.