Intruders in the night
In the height of Summer, this house demonstrates an uncanny trick. As the sun goes down and the cool night air arrives, the inside of the house steadily gets hotter. During the day, by closing the blinds and being a little particular about air flow, we're able to keep the loungeroom below about 24°C. Then, as if the house had been holding its breath, valiantly saving us from the sun's worst, it appears to give up around sunset. The thermometer in the loungeroom steadily climbs up to 28 or 29°C and I start to wonder whether I should move my bed into the backyard for the night.
Instead, I generally find myself lying on my back, limbs outstretched, with the bedside fan providing the only means of restful slumber. That was until a moment of genius graced my sweltering brain one night, and I decided to open my bedroom window!
I've been painting the house, so of course the window would not budge at first, and it took a suspicious looking few minutes of working away at it with a screwdriver before it creaked open for the first time this Summer. I don't know whether to be glad or concerned that no one in the street was disturbed by the scene of a lad dressed in boxers, jimmying away at a bedroom window with a screwdriver, eventually forcing it open. Perhaps the fact that the suspicious youth finished by closing the window and then entering the house by the front door calmed anyone's concerns.
Finally the window was open and the bedside fan a million times more effective as it brought in crisp night air, instead of blowing the same sweaty air back at me. But as I lay in bed, enjoying the cool breeze, I began to recall why I don't go to bed early. Unless it is some time past midnight, and I've at least already fallen asleep in my chair a couple of times or woken up on the couch with the crossword on my face and a pen still in my hand, I'm not ready to shut off.
And so I began a three hour dialogue with my brain. There are many life's important mysteries to be contemplated, such as, is pure water the epitome of neutral taste, and if so, does air have a taste? Or, am I more often misunderstood or just wrong, and is there really any difference? Or, are those two tiles in the ceiling crooked? Or, as it occurred to me this particular night, would anyone be so brazen as to stick their hand through the now open bedroom window, intending to grab something of value within?
I consoled this fear by figuring it was rather unlikely, but if it were to occur I would be prepared. I imagined grabbing the hand as it emerged through the blind and throwing the window down on to the attached arm in one deft manoeuvre. Anyone that was to try a stunt tonight would never do it again, I imagined, and I returned to the matter of chatting with my brain.
A couple of hours later I was still awake, casually attempting to solve the world's problems with my eyes closed, when I heard a movement at the window. Surely not! My eyes shot open and my ears primed. Again, a noise at the window, this time suggesting contact with the blind. I leapt out of bed and floated across the floor. In an instant I was standing, staring at the dark space where the blind covered the open window, hands slightly raised and poised to respond to the next movement. The blinds parted for a split second, something protruded into my domain and I launched in to attack.
My leading hand grabbed at the intrusion and I swung with a mighty launch of my right hand at the black area through the blind. Nothing resisted the swing and I fell part way through the blind, stopped on the other side only by my forehead which collected the window frame in its slid-up position. There was no one to be seen through the window and the only evidence anyone had been there was due to my limbs crashing through the blind, breaking one slat in half and tearing five more.
As I gathered my thoughts, I contemplated running outside to see if I could see anything. I then remembered the neighbours across the road were up, chatting on the balcony. Surely they'd seen something. I gathered my phone, keys and wallet - the process seems to represent the gathering of thought that lead to action - and headed across the road.
"Did you see that at the window just now?" I asked, as they giggled and calmly smoked.
"Yes", they replied, "we saw it".
"Well, who was it, where did they go?", I stammered.
"It was a cat. You should have seen it jump!" they explained.
That would have been my cat, calmly returning from her nightly roaming to retire in my room. She had probably quite enjoyed the fact that I'd opened the bedroom window, allowing her to come and go as she pleases. She probably didn't enjoy the fact that he latest return had been answered by her owner, blindly crashing through the window at her. We're both glad, I sure, that I didn't enact the grab and window slam trick I had concocted earlier in the night.
In the morning I woke to find my cat had returned at some point in the morning, finally able to sleep peacefully in the room as she normally does. I also found a tidy little lump on my forehead, a dishevelled looking blind and a rather sheepish ego.