black on gray
you woke suddenly to see a man standing by the foot of your bed - on your side. the light was dim, a heady gray, while he was as black as a shadow.
as your heart raced, you struggled to bring him into focus. you couldn’t speak, just mumbled - loud and incoherent - like watching someone have a nightmare.
you realized it was not your house, but the house you grew up in. you were not in your own bed, but in your parents. you were on your father’s side - the other side of the bed was empty.
shadow man said his name was ‘rex’ or ‘ron’ or something, but like the certain knowing that comes in dreams, you knew his name was steve.
he asked you for something innocuous - a smoke or a light. you knew he wanted money. just $20.
as you got up to turn on the lights, you noticed the power was off. the red light on the small television facing the bed was absent.
you asked him to wait outside the front door. gathered $70 together - a fifty and a twenty - and went to see him.
as you handed him the money, you asked him if he had disconnected the electricity. he said he couldn’t tell a lie and had done so.
you asked him where the fuse box was - as a child you had changed the fuses often, but now you couldn’t remember where it was.
you hadn’t been home in nearly 40 years.