Free write

It's 9:11 am and I woke up easily this morning. Thankfully I had some left over sleeping meds. I took them last night to get some rest. And I did get some. Up until about three or four that is when my paranoia about rats and mice set it. I don't know why. I don't know if I want to know why. I only know I want them to go. I need noise late at night. I need words. Words, not music. So I listen to Ted Talks or my favorite authors on YouTube. Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Sylvia Plath, James Baldwin. Or I listen to books on tape or I watch Netflix. Lately I Netflix.

I'm afraid I will hear scratching under my bed. I don't know why. I've never seen rats or mice here in this house or anywhere I've lived. Wait, once. Once when I was a young girl I was in the kitchen of the house where I grew up my mom and I were standing at the stove and a rat or a mouse scurried from under the stove to somewhere under the washing machine. My mom and I froze then started screaming and running. Another time I saw a mouse at my grandparent's house when I was taking care of my grandfather. That time I didn't run and scream. Instead I waited until my grandmother returned home and I left.

Another time I was taking care of a client. Her dog was playing with a dead mouse. I was terrified of it. Eventually I swept it out of the house. Another time, with the same client, a mouse crawled in from the open back door. It freaked me out. I told the owners of the house and they responded as if I said a fly entered. I think that's all of my creepy rat and mouse stories. I'm only afraid of them inside of spaces. I've seen them plenty of times outside and I was all right. Walking the streets of New York mostly, in fields and other places in nature.

I don't know why I'm so terrified of seeing them in my sleep. Every night. But. I. Am.