At 12:45am this morning I’m pulled from sleep like a Cylon from an airlock to the inky depths of awakefulness (finally getting to my BluRay collection – like the simile?). I lay on my side, eyes closed wondering what just happened. Did I dream something?

Memory reboot.

As my brain comes online I realize I was woken by a thump above my head. I pieced together the noise and the plaster falling from the ceiling as being two parts of a memory puzzle that had just happened.

The neighbour has fallen…

I lay there silent, wondering what the hell I should do next. My primal sleepy brain instantly thought that if the neighbor upstairs had fallen and because the noise was so heavy, so meaty, there was a good chance he hit his head on the way down. It did sound like a 210lbs watermelon bouncing off hardwood. And if that was the case I was going to start feeling his blood drip on my face soon.

Stupid sleepy primal brain.

“Marfgkl,” I hear, muffled though the floorboards.

Another thump. Not as shocking, threatening, hits the floor. His arm?

After ten minutes, the sleepy primal brain changes to the uncaring, heartless brain, hoping he’ll bleed out and we get a new neighbour who doesn’t fall down at 1am for liquid reasons.

Twenty minutes pass and I hear what could be crawling to the bathroom. The shower turns on.

I fall asleep to images of black and white blood, swirling down the drain, a la Psycho.