-----
Awake.
A
knocking at the door.
Stefan
awoke, but did not stir.
Another set of knocks.
Groggily,
sluggishly, he sat up in his bed, his muscles stiff and his body aching. He
examined his surroundings. The room was dark and unlit: the light was off and the
blinds were drawn across the sole window to his right, betraying nothing of the
outdoors. He was in his striped pyjamas, his slippers at the foot of his bed.
The television stood in the corner, and its remote lay on the night-table
beside the bed. Stefan took the remote and turned on the TV. Static greeted
him, the white noise filling the room. Shutting it off, he wondered what day it
was. He got up off his bed and slipped into his slippers. He walked over to the
window and pulled open the blinds.
The knocking returned, now
louder.
A snow storm raged, obscuring
everything outside. If he listened closely, he could hear the winds, constant
companions to the storm. He was cold. His blanket, thick and woollen, had
provided him some comfortable respite but now that he was up and about it was a
different story. He shuffled over to his closet and took out his woollen
bathrobe. He had to get to the kitchen.
Stumbling out of his bedroom, he
came into the main room of the apartment. It was likewise dark, the blowing of
the wind always in the background. The room was simple, the green walls adorned
with one or two paintings, a nice rug covering the floor. Wasting no time,
Stefan stumbled on through to the kitchen. Hanging above the small pine table
was a calendar, with the dates crossed out to-
October 29th. Stefan
stared at the date, then glanced out the kitchen into the main room. All he
could see through his apartment’s main window was an immensity of blowing snow.
How could it be October the 29th? October 29th was – of course. He
slapped himself for his stupidity. October 29th was the day he, and
everyone else, fell asleep. Obviously he could not update his calendar if he
was asleep. And then he understood that he shouldn’t be awake.
Four sharp knocks.
Stefan, noticing the insistent knocking
for the first time, jerked towards the door to his apartment. Someone was
standing on the other side of the door. Someone else was awake when they should
not be. But who? On the surface of a planet that was now covered by an immeasurably
vast blanket of ice and snow, who would be awake? Why was he awake? Stefan
stared at the door, frozen like the world outside of his apartment. It would
stay frozen until spring came and the storm left, but now it was inhospitable. He
and every single human on the planet should be asleep. But he and one other
soul were not.
To be awake when eight billion
others were asleep! And this was only the humans. Was a single body other than
him and the stranger outside his apartment walking today? Now that he thought
about it, it was possible. Although he had never been awake from October to
March for the past fifteen years, he was awake now, and so, he reasoned, there
could in fact be more than two awake on this day.
A set of four knocks.
His attention was drawn back to the
knocking: Back to the question of the identity of the person behind the inch or
so of wood of Stefan’s apartment door. Stefan sat down on the single leather
couch that adorned his main room. Questions, like so many buzzing bees, racketed
through the inside of his head. Was this night-time (or was it day-time? With
the storm, you could never really tell) visitor a friend of Stefan’s? Awoken by
some mysterious means had he come to visit? To be honest, Stefan hadn’t many
friends, and the ones that he had did not live in the building. It would be
suicide to venture outside at this time of year as the cataclysmic storm raged.
Not a friend, then.
It would have to be someone who
lived in his building. But what had awakened them? Had they, somewhere, stashed
away one of the old programmable alarm clocks? Owning such devices was a severe
felony, especially during the winter. Although he was not certain, Stefan
thought that even being awake in the winter months was violating some obscure
law. But perhaps that was only in the totalitarian countries. But then again,
if one knew that all others were asleep, one could move about in the winter
months with no fear whatsoever, as nobody else would know. So that was a
possibility.
The final option was a government
agent. A police officer or such like coming in to see if anyone was violating
the laws that may or may not exist. But during the storm, all communications
were useless and it was impossible to travel out of doors. Stefan’s apartment
was small – barely fifteen floors, and as far as he knew no policemen or women
lived in it, and besides, they could have no contact with the station. Unless
it was all some grand conspiracy by a global shadow government to be able to
conduct nefarious experiments while humanity slumbered. But those theories were
mostly likened to crackpots and revolutionaries, whom were mostly frowned upon
in modern society. But the nagging thought was always in people’s heads.
Four
knocks.
Once again Stefan looked at the
door. All the previous questions at once expunged themselves from his mind
leaving only one: should he or should he not open the door? He could just
ignore the knocking, slip back under his comfortable covers, and sleep for
however much time was left until March. The knocking would stop eventually and
he’d be peaceful and happy in his warm bed. This option seemed all the more
attractive as Stefan realized it was quite cold in his main room, even in his
woollen robe and slippers. He got up off the couch.
Bang
Bang Bang Bang.
Surprised at the sudden insistence
of the knocking, Stefan’s eyes were fixed on the door. Beside himself, he began
to move towards it. Opening that door would open up a new world, and would
answer so many questions, all the while opening new ones. If he opened the
door, he would be a new man.
Bang
Bang Bang Bang
But again, it seemed to him that opening
the door would break some basic law of nature, as both he and his visitor were
awake at a time when so many others were asleep.
Bang
Bang Bang Bang
Stefan stumbled and fell to his
knees, knocking over a table. The vase standing on top of it toppled and
shattered with a great and sudden noise. Weakly, he lifted his head towards the
door and noticed the doorknob slowly turning.
The door to Stefan’s eighth floor
apartment blew open with the force of a gale, winds blowing at insane speeds
and with great cacophony. A flurry of snow followed and Stefan gripped the rug
to hold on. The pieces of the vase were sent flying across the room. Struggling
against the assault of the winds, Stefan looked up at the doorway.
A man stood in the doorway, clad in
a thick parka and winter boots. All around him shone a brilliant light through
which particles of snow danced, as if he was an angel come to bring salvation. The
visitor was looking straight above Stefan such that his face was hidden by the
edge of his hood. Stefan stared upwards in fear and admiration.
The man’s head turned downwards as
time seemed to freeze. The fluffs of snow hung lamely in the glow of the
doorway. The sound of the wind died and Stefan’s heartbeat slowed. He laid on
the ground and waited. The visitor faced him. A dazzling light emanated from
under his hood. He extended his arm to Stefan. Stefan shut his eyes, and opened
them.
The apartment was spotless and
silent, the door firmly closed. The broken pieces of the vase lay beside Stefan
where they had fallen before. Stefan allowed his breathing to slow down and
collected himself. He stood up and walked into his bedroom. Dropping his
slippers and robe, he crawled underneath his blanket and buried himself under
it.
Stefan slept.
