Brush with Death

Something happened to me during the night, and it has shaken me to my core...but this was no mouse. This was something far more sinister.

Stop laughing, this is serious.

I was having trouble falling asleep, so I started reading the book I brought with me. It is a story rife with murder plots, revenge, and visions of ghosts, so of course I was pretty well freaked out to begin with.

After about an hour, I had exhausted all the positions available for comfort while reading, so I decided to relocate to the couch on the other side of the room.

I soon found that the couch was out of reach of the lamplight by which I had been reading, so I moved the lamp onto the corner of Sarah's bed, found a comfortable spot on the couch, and resumed my reading.

After sitting about twenty minutes in this manner, just as I had come to a particularly thrilling spot in the story, I heard a clank followed by the violent shattering of glass, and was suddenly plunged into complete darkness.

"This is it," I thought to myself, "this is the culmination of all those years' suspicious noises in this very room...surely now death has come to claim me."

I picked up the pillow upon which I had been resting my book, and with it as my only shield, slowly made my way to the door. "I would be as far away from the lightswitch as is humanly possible at this moment. Curse that couch, with all its denim delights!"

I prepared in my throat a scream to be executed the moment I was seized by the cold hand I knew was creeping ever closer toward me to claim my life.

Suddenly, my finely upholstered shield was met with resistance. Could it be? Had I reached the far wall? The door? The lightswitch? It was too good, too fortunate to be true! Whilst waving the pillow wildly to fend off whatever dangers lurked behind me with my right hand, I clumsily groped along the wall with my left until finally, mercifully, my fingers found the lightswitch and hastily flipped it on.

I turned to face my would-be attacker, but found no one.

As I stood there, heart pounding, palms sweating, the door opened. I screamed. Sarah entered, wearing a foam rubber cowboy hat.

Sarah: "...it's just me."

Emily: "You frightened me."

Sarah: "What happened? I thought I heard something break."

Emily: "Someone was trying to kill me."

Sarah: "What?"

Emily: "I broke a lamp."

Sarah: "...was...the lamp? Trying to kill you?"

Emily: "Why are you wearing that hat?"

Sarah: "Kris gave it to me...don't change the subject!"

Emily: "I thought myself in the gravest of danger. I was sure my life was at its end..."

Sarah: "Why are you talking like...what were you reading?"

Emily: "The Count of Monte Cristo."

Sarah: "Emily! What did I tell you?!"

Emily: "Not to read that book after dark."

Sarah: "And why did I tell you that?"

Emily: "Because every time I read it after dark, I break a lamp."

Sarah: "And...?"

Emily: "...and I have a tendency to start speaking like a nineteenth century French aristocrat."

Sarah: "And how does that make me feel?"

Emily: "Like you want to punch me een ze sroat."

Not to worry, everybody. I should be finished with this book by the end of my flight tonight, after which point I promise to return to my regular literary diet of teen fiction and online gossip columns.