3.
Deliberately, the old man approaches the door
“Perhaps you did not first hear my inquiry,
Kind sir, or ma’am,
But, I must insist to you emphatically,
Answer now, or I shall turn you away into the rain.
Pray, tell me, who is there?!?!”
KNOCK!!!
Is the only answer given.
The old man’s shaking hand reaches toward the heavy door
And grasps the latch,
“Surely, my curiosity is overwhelming,
For someone to have traveled such a very long way,
In such a squall, you must have something to say.
Or, perhaps it is that you are injured, and can not speak.
But, what if it is that you are a highwayman, here to
Take advantage of a poor old hermit on a stormy night?
Please, sir, or ma’am, if you can utter even a single sound
From your lips, do it now, so that I may rest assured
You mean no harm.”
Silence falls across the room, as the rain stops falling,
And the wind no longer howls.
The sound of water dripping off the thatched roof
Into the puddles formed outside the window
Lulls the old man into a sense of safety,
As he imagines that the infernal knocking
Was just the wind, and nothing more.
He turns to go back to his chair…
KNOCK!!!!
The answer comes, once more.
4.
Angrily, the old hermit wheels, and undoes the latch on the door,
Swinging it open wide, and staring into the darkness of the night,
Reassuring himself that it had been only the wind
He realizes then that the blackness before him is not the night air at all
But, the flowing, black robes of a traveler
(Whose face is hidden beneath his hood).
“Kind sir!,” he says, “You must excuse my impertinence,
Please, come in and remove those soaked robes
And let them dry by my fire.”
But the figure does not move.
The old hermit stares uneasily at the wraith-like figure before him
“Please, do come in and warm yourself, kind sir,
I am so terribly sorry for my anger.
An old man such as myself comes to get very
Nervous about visitors at such a late hour as this,
Being, as I am,
So far from the beaten path.”
The figure does not move.
Slowly, a cloaked arm raises
And throws back the hood
Upon broad shoulders
Revealing a bleached white skull.
The hideous, grinning mouth slowly opens,
And the old man stands terrified
As the figure lets loose a most soul shattering howl.
5.
Suddenly, a KNOCK! upon the heavy wooden door shakes the old man
Back into wakefulness.
He quickly jumps up and opens the door
To see a broken limb
Flailing in the wind which still howls wildly
Through thistle and branch
As the heavy rain falls
“A dream!” he says, “And nothing more.
Has it come to pass that too many years I have spent
In these mountains, and that my mind has escaped me to the point
That I might be fearful of mere storms?”
As he settles back into his high backed chair,
Having retrieved his pen from its resting place upon the floor,
And drawing life back into his smoldering pipe,
He writes a line or two of poetry,
And smiles to himself when a KNOCK!
Comes at his door…
Fin.
Happy Halloween!!!
peace, wayf
