by Michael Hanna

Created on: November 09, 2007   Last Updated: December 17, 2011

A brilliant dawn shot yellow arrows of sunlight through the purple curtain of the night sky. Far below my window, a river coated with spotted leaves twisted like a yellow snake through the dark, wet valley.

From the front deck I heard a phone ringing in the other room. An icy dewdrop plopped into my coffee from an overhanging branch. I thought of how each day is a blend of the expected and predictable with a dash of the unknowable, unforeseeable and unpredictable.

Who is calling at this hour? Then it stopped. Then it rang again and whatever tranquility I had fled like wild birds scattering from a gun blast. Annoyed, I walked across the room and yanked up the phone.

"Yeah?"

"We know where you are." A man grumbled. "Don't go anywhere. We're coming down." His deep voice sounded like a spoon caught in a garbage grinder. Click. The phone went dead. Did I hear right? Coming down? I slowly put down the phone. My hand was trembling. 'We', pin-balled in my head.

Just then, the front doorbell hit me like a heart defibrillator. My legs went soft. My knees where twitching. What's going on? A minute ago I was drifting down a lazy river and now I was paddling against the rapids.

I went over to the heavy door and slowly slid the chain on for safety. The gold plated links in the chain lock seemed puny and cheap now that I needed them.

"Yeah," I said, peeking around the corner of the door. Two large shadows were silhouetted against the red bricks on the porch. Both men wore dark raincoats. The taller one had a rumpled pork-pie hat; the other was chomping a cigar. With these two oil burners at my doorstep, I flipped open my cell, ready for 911, just in case.

"Can we come in?" That's the voice on the phone. The smoker was half asking, half presuming. Primal alarm bells banged in my skull. Red panic lights flashed before my eyes. All I could think to do was shut the door fast!

I threw my shoulder into the door but it wouldn't shut; a boot the size of a shoe box wedged it open. Suddenly these two bruisers stormed the door. The force charge ripped out the chain lock and knocked me hard against the wall. Incredibly, my beautiful day went from sunrise to sunset. Now I fighting for my life against two goons the size of refrigerators who had me nailed to the wall in my own hallway.

A lamp toppled over and a glass picture frame crashed to the floor momentarily distracting them. I flailed at one of them with my cell and caught him in the ear. But the other gorilla angrily shoved me to

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