The Intruder

I pushed open the door, and stifled a gasp when I saw him standing there. He looked exactly as he had in my terrifying nightmares-menacing, unclean. I trembled as he slowly explored my room. Obviously, the ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’ sign on my door had meant nothing to him…

But mother had promised me, just the night before, that I would never have to worry about this….this….monstrosity…ever again. That he was a thing of the past. Yet here he was, with his back to me, methodically and coolly walking through my disorderly room as though he owned it. The last shards of my self control shattered, and I hugged myself in an effort to stop trembling.

Slowly, as though he could sense my gaze, he turned and looked straight at me. Then, leering, he took tottering, unsteady steps towards me, as though he had all the time in the world. I couldn’t move; paralysed and frightened, I stood in the doorway and screamed like a banshee.

Suddenly, midway through his weaving path, he stopped abruptly and collapsed. His eyes, the eyes I had never had the courage to look into, seemed to cloud over. My breath caught. Slowly, I forced air back into my lungs and clung to the door, trying to calm my racing heart. It seemed as though the new insecticide had worked after all!

I strode into my room fearlessly, taking special care to squash the cockroach that lay sprawled on its back.