Monster Monday: Madeleine Peyroux- Bare Bones

You can’t help but gently sway to the opening plunk-plunk guitar tempo of [Instead] as if in a late night foggy jazz club. By the time you hear the smooth siren call it is too late for you.

Of course, you don’t realize it yet as you lean against the rail of your front porch and count the fireflies lighting up. Krista knocks some dishes together as she cleans up the kitchen. Even the sound of the water running through the faucet you find tranquil. You chalk it up to something in your [Bare Bones.]

Something crashes in the kitchen. It’s not just dishes.

You enter the house and turn the corner to the kitchen.

“Krista?”

Krista can’t answer due to the meat cleaver stuck in the back of her head. Blood covers the window in front of the sink, the counter and the pea green tiled floor. You scream.

Your eyes dart around the room but you see no one there. You can do nothing but whimper and [float down this river of tears.] The darkness in the next room breathes menace.
You go to call the police and find the phone dead. You remember that your mobile phone is lying on your bed upstairs.

You pull the largest knife you have from the kitchen drawer and step around the corner to the main hallway. The long scar along your arm brings back shivery memories.

[“You can’t do me the way you did before”]

The walk to the stairs is lit but that is little comfort. Beyond the stairs is the darkness and the scent of [Love and Treachery.] It reminds you of strawberries.

Out of the darkness leaps a swinging blade.

You scramble up the stairs by twos. The knife wielder oozes from beyond the stairs and follows you. He wears a red hood with crude slits for eyes. The light dances off the blades in a belt across his shoulder.

A tune drifts across the breeze from the open window at the top of the stairs; the neighbor humming [To Love You All Over Again.]

There must be something you can do. You tell yourself [“I Must be Saved”] as some kind of mantra. You leave the lights out upstairs and crouch in the second room’s doorway and hold your breathe.

The hood tentatively enters the darkness and searches the first room. A lamp crashes against the wall and to the ground.

You run around the corner and leap into the room with The Hood, swinging your knife violently. You feel it push into something hard and hear a muffled moan. The Hood throws your head into a dresser and you see stars. You don’t dare stop swinging your arm. You swing up and hit something else. The Hood lets go of you and falls to the ground.

After you get your bearings, you stumble to the light switch and flip it on. The Hood is in the middle of the floor with your knife sticking in his chin. He must be dead.

You can see in a mirror that you have a nasty gash in your head and a trail of blood running down your neck. Consider it a scratch since you’re still alive.

Life sure is [Somethin’ Grand.]

Or at least, it will be tomorrow.