Below the coat I could see his striped pyjamas and heavy hiking boots. He was wrapping himself in the tails of the old sheepskin coat I’d sometimes seen him wearing as he worked outside the house. There was a crunch of snow, and into my field of vision came my neighbour, whom I call Oddball. In the darkness I managed to seek out the familiar, cold aerosol shape, and thus armed, I switched on the outside light, then looked at the porch through a small side window.
Downstairs, in the cubbyhole for the electrical meters, I keep the pepper spray Dizzy gave me because of the poachers, and that was what now came to mind. As I searched for my slippers in the dark, I could hear that whoever had been banging was now walking around the house, muttering. I had to sit down and tell myself several times: I’m at home, it’s Night, someone’s banging on the door only then did I manage to control my nerves.
Unfortunately this has been happening to me lately, and has to do with my Ailments. I felt weak and began to reel, as if about to lose consciousness. I sprang up and stood by the bed, unsteadily, because my sleepy, shaky body couldn’t make the leap from the innocence of sleep into wakefulness. So when I was woken in the middle of the Night by hammering on the door – violent, immoderate and thus ill-omened – I was unable to come round. Meanwhile I had fallen very fast asleep I had helped myself with an infusion of hops, and I also took two valerian pills. Had I examined the Ephemerides that evening to see what was happening in the sky, I wouldn’t have gone to bed at all. I am already at an age and additionally in a state where I must always wash my feet thoroughly before bed, in the event of having to be removed by an ambulance in the Night.
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