The Whims of an Author

Anne has always had dreams about dying. I know this, because I write her dreams. In some of them, she falls from a great height or drowns in freezing waters. Others she dies simply as an old woman, from sickness or that great affliction known as being alive. No matter how, she always dreams of dying. Yet she always wakes the next morning, climbing out of her wrinkled covers and stumbling downstairs to make coffee. She drives to work or to see family if it’s a weekend and then she comes home and watches a movie and falls asleep on the couch halfway through Interstellar, unafraid of death.

This story begins on a day much like that. Anne wakes up and does not think about dying. She goes to the school. She teaches fifteen year olds about the fall of the Roman Empire, then comes home and boils pasta on the stove. She locks her front door before climbing the stairs for the night, turning off each light as she goes. She sleeps and dreams that she has wings, soaring through the sky. It is the kind of blue that is so vibrant she wishes she could dip a paintbrush in it. She does not see the dark clouds on the horizon, the storm gathering with winds that will surely knock her out of the sky. Instead, she soars higher. She is an eagle, a falcon, a plane. She is Icarus, but she cannot see the sun. Thunder rumbles in the distance, but it sounds strange. Does thunder usually clatter? Anne shifts in bed, and the figure on the windowsill freezes.

He crouches on the windowsill like an oversized crow. A cup previously full of pens is rolling on the floor, its contents spread out below her desk. Anne rolls over, her eyes blinking open. A knife slides into the hand of the figure from somewhere within his dark, shapeless form.

Anne shoots up in bed, scrambling to throw off the covers. The figure lunges. She rolls onto the floor with a soft “oof,” and the cloaked figure slides into the door, blocking it with his body. Anne hauls herself to her feet with the window, staring down death.

She is trapped. Her back is to the window, the bed standing between her and the figure. The shadows play tricks on her mind, and he seems to grow taller in the darkness. Panic clouds Anne’s mind as she takes one step backwards, and then another. Her back hits the windowsill. The figure advances towards her, his knife glinting in the moonlight. Anne wraps her fingers around the sill, preparing herself to meet death, closing her eyes…

And rolls backwards out the window. The hooded figure stops in his tracks, unsure what to do.

Wait. You’re not supposed to do that.

Anne lands in the bushes below, her cell phone in her hand. “I’ve always had a tendency to break the rules,” She says, holding the phone to her ear.

Fine. Two can play at this game. She presses the power button on the phone, but the screen stays black. She holds the button again and again. Nothing happens.

I smile.

Weren’t thinking of calling the police, now, were we?

A crash sounds from her bedroom, and then the figure appears in the window above Anne. She gazes up in fear, her eyes widening as death leaps from her window, his cloak flapping out behind him like a pair of monstrous wings. Anne dodges to the right, sprinting towards the front of the house as he lands harmlessly in the grass. Death pauses once more, then wrenches the knife out of the grass and gives chase. Anne’s determination is stronger than her fear - she does not want to die.

That’s a shame. You have no choice.

Anne’s bare feet pound the grass, her thoughts whirling. Her neighbors are surely not awake - but if she knocks loud enough, would they hear? The concrete steps are cold in the night air as she reaches the door. She bangs on it, screaming.

If only your neighbors were home to help you. Didn’t they ask you to take care of their cat this week?

As if on cue, the cat begins yowling from inside. Anne’s hand freezes on the door, and then she turns and runs back towards her house. There is a gun locked in a cabinet beside her front door. If she can get there in time, she might live. That is what she tells herself.

Stupid girl.

The killer watches her from where he stands in her driveway. She has gone around to the back door, perhaps hoping to buy herself some time. Perhaps she has forgotten all about that figure in black who stands with a knife, and is simply running because it is what her fight-or-flight response is telling her to do.

He chases her.

By the time the killer reaches the door, she has fished the key out from under the mat and hurled the door open. Gloved fingers wrap around the frame as she goes to close it. She shoves the door with a grunt and hears a sickening crunch as the door collides with the hand. As Anne reaches the front of the house, she spots her car keys hanging by the hook and gets a different idea.

Oh, no you don’t.

The house begins to shake as if given a shove by a massive hand. Dishes rattle in the cabinet and then, as the shaking grows stronger, crash to the floor. The car keys bounce off the hook and land on the air vent directly below. They dangle precariously between the slats for a moment.

Anne’s eyes grow wide, and then she lunges for the keys, catching them on a finger just before they slide through the vent.

“An earthquake, really? I could come up with a better obstacle than that,” Anne says.

Is that so?

As if punishment for her remark, a lamp careens towards her head. She yelps, throwing herself to the left and landing at the bottom of the stairs. The black clad figure stumbles into the foyer, holding the wall for support with one hand and cradling the other in front of him.

Swearing, Anne scrambles backwards. Her sweating hands scramble for purchase on the front door, searching for the knob. She wrenches it open as the shaking in the house subsides. Anne’s lungs heave as she makes for her car, and deliriously wonders what she must look like right now. A barefoot girl in her pajamas, attempting to press the unlock button on her car key with shaking hands. She misses the first time and sets off the car alarm, a wailing sound that echoes down the entire street. The sound makes her pause. Surely somebody will hear, she thinks as the knife-welding figure advances towards her. Anne stumbles backwards, nearly tripping on the curb as she reaches the road.

“HELP!” Her cry echoes down the empty street.

Then, a light flicks on in the house across the street. A lifeline.

Turning, Anne bolts towards it. A dark shape tackles her halfway there, his knife already on its way down as they tumble to the ground. It catches her in the shoulder and she yells again, this time from pain. The hooded figure raises the knife again just as Anne hears a siren wail in the distance. Her neighbors must have called the police.

Good, Anne thinks through her panic. Death wedges his knife in her chest. It pierces her heart. His face is mere inches from hers, but she still cannot make out a single feature. There is nothing but darkness beneath his hood.

I don’t want to die, she thinks.

Nor does the protagonist of any suspense story.

“Is that all I am? A character?” She gasps.

“We all are,” Death growls, twisting the knife. “We are at the whims of the author.”