While we sleep

I don’t know how long he may have stood there. Whether he had some master plan or if he was merely an amateur with an opportunity he wanted to seize in that moment…. How could I know? My mind was far away, in that place where dreams are made and magic is real; even for twenty year olds. It’s rare that I dream, or rather that I remember the little abstract titbits that float in and out of my subconscious but this was one of those days.

I dreamt of Cinderella in reverse; a story of a little orphan girl and a witch instead of a fairy godmother. A story in which the pumpkin remained exactly that – round, plump and orange - in which the mice were filthy and scurried around, nibbling at dead decaying mounds… A story with a prince, of course, an coarse ugly evil hearted being but a prince all the same. A story in which at the stroke of midnight, the orphan Cinderella returns home after a night with the prince, lost slipper and all but also bloodied petticoat and thighs bruised in places that the prince had torn to satisfy his perverse appetite. A fairytale without the happy ending

So there I was, in my own little dream world, unaware of the silent voyeur at my window who had somehow pried my window open and who now stood watching the rhythmic rise and fall of my naked breasts; the nipples that had budded in the cold. Perhaps that is what woke me, his naked penetrating gaze… I don’t know. I opened my eyes, startled to find myself being watched by this seemingly faceless stranger but his eyes, his eyes! Was that terror or shock? He had that look that wild animals have when they are cornered then caged: an overwhelming desire to strike back while in the same moment, an understanding that their fate has been sealed completely.

I blinked and he was still there, standing as if watching to see what I would do next. I sat up and quick as lightning he put a wire through the window and took my purse. I screamed. Not the kind of scream that speaks of fear but rather of shock – at his daring, at my own fearless curiosity, at the fact that my dream had been stopped abruptly and this was real. He ran, or perhaps I only imagined that. I reached out and tried to shut my window and this time he had a cassava stick. I almost laughed when I saw it. It was fresh, probably from our garden outside. I thought that he may hit me but somehow the threat of attack did not register. I looked at him again and saw his chequered orange shirt and his curly hair - dark as coal. Yet, somehow, I couldn’t for the life of me see his face. It was like a featureless orb except for those eyes, those wild searching eyes.

I screamed. I knew that was what he was waiting for before he decided whether to push dumb luck or flee for dear life. I screamed and sent him running.

The purse was more or less empty. If you lived in my house, you’d know not to leave money lying around for a certain someone to find. It had other things though, my ID, medical reports, academic nonsense and so on. Some he threw out, I wonder why… He took the most important thing though, the purse itself. Someone special gave it to me and now it’s been added to an ever increasing list of items that have mysteriously disappeared. Things that reminded me of her, things that I treasured.

In it was a picture of four laughing girls posing in a studio whose name I can't remember, laughing at the photographer who was asking us more or less to bring sexy back. In my on twisted way, I hope the laughter in our eyes haunts him, perhaps as much as his presence haunts my mother, perhaps as much as its loss hurts me, perhaps as often as my little sister will sleep fitfully trying to escape the thought of you at her window