The Nightly Ritual

Clunk.

Tim twists the deadbolt and hears it slide satisfyingly into place, seated into the metal reinforced doorjamb. He lowers down to the knob and turns that, hearing the click as the locking mechanism engages. He walks to the garage and back doors and repeats the same process. The ritual that he would do every night. He looked at the clock and grabbed a bottle of water for bed and paused at the bottom of the stairs. He turned back to the front door, confident he had locked the door but wanting to make extra sure. The front door was locked, as were the other two doors.

Content, Tim returned to the stairs and, with one last glance, began to ascend. The world continues to be a scary place and as long as I keep that out, I can keep my family and I safe inside our home. He pulled his shoes off and quietly slid into bed alongside his sleeping wife.

Tim awoke out of what could have been a dream. He didn’t remember it, but that was nothing new. He quietly swung his legs out of bed and moved with something akin to a stumble to the bathroom. While he stood at the toilet he stared out the window at the illuminated yard. That fence really needed to get fixed. Suddenly Tim’s mental honey-do list of things that he had quite successfully put off until ‘tomorrow, someday, or later’ which was growing rapidly flooded his mind and he felt his stress level go up.

Sighing, he stumbled back to bed, more awake now than he wanted and slid back in, things he had put off for weeks or months racing through his mind. Trying to banish them one by one, making plans that would never happen, one kept coming back again and again.

Lock the door!

“Shit”. Sliding out of bed again, he turns the doorknob and opens the door slightly, peering back to ensure that his wife is still soundly asleep. In the dim light he can barely make out the lump of her in the dark. Slinking down the stairs, he went around the corner and growled inwardly. The front door was unlocked! How could he have forgotten that, he was so confident that he had locked it.

Tim walked over to the locks. Clunk. Click. To the back door and the garage door. Clunk. Click. Finishing that, he went back to the front door, because you always check twice. He physically touched the locks, smiling. Nice and secure.

Creeping up the stairs, he repeats the process of sneaking into bed and lies there, awaiting sleep. He notices a damp spot on his back and sighs, lord knows where that is from. Then the thought returns to him.

Lock the door!

Sighing, Tim, once again, slips out of bed and retreats to the downstairs where he found himself staring agape at the front door. The deadbolt and knob lock were both unlocked. He had locked that before, he was 100 percent sure…well, 80 percent at least. Convinced that he had forgotten to, he locks the door again, repeating his ritual of safety. Clunk. Clink. Next door. This time, upon the second examination, Tim opts to tip over the end table that he had discovered during COVID is the perfect size to block the door. This way, they are good.

Sneaking back upstairs to avoid waking his wife, Tim slips back into bed. Dozing off, his mind spirals. What was that noise? Did you really forget to lock the door? How could you?!

Lock the door!

Unable to sleep, Tim repeats the process without thinking. Slipping out of bed, creeping out, peering at his wife, carefully sneaking downstairs, and walking to the front door. Tim stopped, his world screeching to a halt and his mind screaming at him as he stared at the door. The door was unlocked. There was no end table blocking the door. Was there someone in here with him? He peered around, moving quickly to the knives in the kitchen.

Tim prowled the house, holding the gleaming chef knife out as he checked each room in the dark. He was confident that at any moment a masked intruder would leap from the darkness. The very same masked intruder that had unlocked the door and set the endtable back up by the door. Closing the very last of the bedrooms, he stood, confused. Had he imagined it all? He walked back to the kitchen and slid the knife back into the wooden block. Now he repeated the ritual, moving from door to door, performing the acts that enshrined his family within a cocoon of security. Clunk. Click. His mind raced for options to ensure that the door is secure. Going over to the garage, he opened the door and rummaged through the bits and parts that he had collected over the year.

With a stifled cry of victory, Tim strode out of the garage with some metal clasps, screws, and his drill. He set to work, his drill spinning slowly so as to not wake his wife. He watched as the Two inch screws sank deep into the door and studs, fastening the door shut. No possible way to hide these. Even if the intruder were to remove them and reset the room, he would see the holes and know – know that the his paranoia about securing his house from the evils of the outside world was justified.

Satisfied that the door was secured, Tim turned to walk away and then returned to the door. Clunk. Click. Just one more time for good measure. Tim slunk back upstairs and laid down, sleep coming to him finally.

Lock the door!

Tim sat up, looking around. It was two. Wait, hadn’t it been two last time? Or was it the time before? Wait, maybe it was twelve… Tim slipped out of bed, confident and wanting to check his handywork. He walked down the stairs, holding the stair rail as we spun around the corner and saw the front door.

No screws.

No bracing.

Unlocked and….

No holes.

Tim felt staggered. He couldn’t have dreamt that. But what other explanation could there be? This felt…unreal. No, this was clearly a dream. He fell asleep and when he wakes the door will be secured with its steel and screws and locks. He turned, not even trying to lock the door and hastily climbed the stairs. He moved around to his side of the bed and slide into it, pulling the blanket up high. He closed his eyes and forcefully banished his thoughts, falling asleep through the sheer force of will.

Lock the door!

The thought awoke him…or was it that damp spot on his shirt. He glanced over at the clock. Two. Wait, it was two the last time, I’m sure of it. He swung out of bed and rushed downstairs, not even caring if his wife was disturbed. The door was unlocked, the trim that needed replacing staring at him as if to accuse him of not finishing anything. He walked to the door and opened it and stepped out; Tim immediately stopped the moment he stepped out of the door.

There, on the concrete of his front porch, lay Tim. Blood pooled from a gunshot wound in ‘his’ back. Tim reached behind him and touched the dampness, a red slickness coating his fingers. The tangy scent of iron coating his nostrils. He wobbled until he finally sat down.

His wife, eyes ringed with red from sobbing emerged from the door, ignoring him, and walked out to the curb as a police car showed up. He listened as they spoke, standing next to them. He had figure it out, he had never been a fool and frankly grimaced at the idea of becoming something of a cliché TV trope.

The wife explained that Tim had gone downstairs in the middle of the night to check the locks and surprised a burglar who had chased Tim. “He came through the kitchen window,” his wife said. “Tim must have surprised him.”

Tim looked at the locked door. Then he remembered running toward it, fumbling with the deadbolt while footsteps closed behind him.. When the officer asked how the burglar entered, the wife admitted that he had come in through the window on the first floor because nobody ever thought to lock those.

Tim walked away. He sat on the stoop beside himself. The window…damnit. He had spent every night preparing for something at the door. He had never considered the window. He had been right, but only halfway. Bad things were going to get in and the horrible irony was that it was only because he felt the urge to go downstairs several times a night to check that it had ended as it had. Tim leaned against the porch railing, feeling drowsy as the ambulance pulled up. Two EMTs rolled a gurney up the walk to him as more flashing lights arrived. He saw neighbors peeking out windows and his body rolled away.

Tim watched as his wife walked back up the walkway, every fiber of his being wanting to console her. She walked past and the door shut.

Clunk. Click.

Tim smiled and, for the first time did not feel the need to check the door. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.