IF you lived in my neighborhood, you might have probably heard about the stark raving mad naked hammer killer my neighbors got an eye full of this morning....that madman would be me.
But let me back up a bit and explain.
Last Friday night it started. Just the regular chirp of a cricket. It went on for a few hours, it sounded close, but not quite like it was coming from inside the house. It was incessant and annoying nonetheless.
The next morning when I crawled out of bed at 6:00 am to go to work, the damned cricket was still chirping. It had chirped so much, so loud, I barely slept an hour. Already pissed I had to work on a weekend, I dragged my sleep deprived ass into the shower, the car, the office and looked forward to getting the day over with, going home and catching some major zzzzzzzzz's. Of course it was the longest day in history.
That night I got myself in bed and was out like a light....for about 3 hours....and then it started again, the chirping. On and on it went like this for 2 days, it got to be where the cricket chirped both night AND day!
Day 4, Surely the cricket was inside the house?! This seemed the best theory, but the lack of sleep had my mind bent. Maybe the cricket had been sent to drive me insane by some nefarious organization or an ex girlfriend? Maybe the cricket had camped out protesting or plotting an attack against me for accidentally stepping on his brother? or.......
Maybe the cricket chirping was all in my head?! Had I slipped into some Poe nightmare? Some beating heart? Black cat?! Some Cask of Amontillado device which would upon realization deliver me into some madness that even Lovecraft himself would shudder to think?!!
I knew for sanity's sake I had to find this intruder and silence him. IT only made me doubt my sanity more that my wife was indifferent to it, being the heavy sleeper she is when I asked her on many occasion if that damned chirping was irritating her as well, she said she hadn't noticed it. Yes, the intruder must be silenced or it would be my undoing.................
Day 5, it's late, with flashlight in hand I have tracked the cricket..he's sly, he's moving around. I've narrowed it down to the east wall. There's a section of wall and a sliding glass door, I still can't pinpoint him.
Day 7, it's early in the morning, the sun is just coming up, I haven't slept in days, only fleeting moments of nightmare and chirping. I crawl out of bed, nude, sweating, I have a screwdriver and a flashlight, I pried up a section of the carpet and discovered a hole in the concrete floor...he's inside there. I've poured hot water down the little hole, I sprayed bug spray, nothing has worked..the hole must be deep or open up under the concrete layer.
I get a hammer and start using it with the screwdriver to chip a bigger hole in the concrete. The cricket finally jumps out of the hole and darts behind the drapes and blinds of the sliding glass door. I grab the blinds and sling them back with fury. I spot my enemy and scream while smashing the cricket with the hammer. I scream in victory "Die you mutherfucker! DIE!!!! You Fuuuuuuuuuuuucc.......
....my neighbors, their children, their dog....they just stare, jaws agape in mortal fear while a naked madman brandishing a hammer and screwdriver screams murderous expletives at them from a sliding glass door.
