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Roused by a pang in the gut. Lying still trying to unwill the red LCD lit 2:58 cutting through the gloom. The naked, muffled journey. The chill breeze and the warm yellow light when the seal is broken and the bounty of the midnight hunter's treasure trove is laid bare. I help myself.
I know he’s there. I see clues sometimes. A tiny footprint in the butter. It could be a footprint, anyway. And surely there’s less juice than there was yesterday. I don’t begrudge him that, not at all. He has a vital job to do, and I appreciate it.
And he’s spoken to me. He’s never shown himself, but I’ve heard him. It was a bit of a shock the first time, but not as much as you might think. I guess I’ve always known he was there. That voice, coming out of the cold.
He said: “That one’s past its used by date.”
I said thanks, grabbed one of the others, and let the fridge door swing closed. Only then did I stop and process events.
He’s always been helpful like that:
“The mushies in the back are still good.”
“Some relish would be good on that.”
“You’ll regret it in the morning.”
But only ever in the dead still of night, with his own light the only illumination in the house. And never with anyone else. I got used to it. I woke up more and more at that hour. I’ve always had strange sleep patterns, and it wasn’t the first time I’d fallen into night-time snacking.
I had a girlfriend then, a smart, beautiful woman who slept eight and a half hours straight any night we were together and often wondered aloud why I was tired and irritable some days and not others with no apparent pattern. My answers didn’t make any sense to her. We fell apart after that.
When we hadn’t been together in a fortnight, when it was irreversible that we were broken but neither of us had yet said what needed to be said, I woke up one night alone with stomach cramps, a full bladder and one of those big pointless erections that serve as the downside to maleness. I couldn’t pee yet, so out of habit I opened the fridge. I stood there half-sleeping and unsure, goosepimpled flesh bathed yellow.
He said: “She’s making you fat.”
And then: “I need a new globe.”
Something was different, but I didn’t know what. At that hour, I know very little.
A few days ago the light in the fridge went. I just turn the light on in the kitchen instead. I thought he’d gone for good, and I didn’t miss him, but last night I was making a sandwich and I heard him again.
“I’m going to eat your eyeballs from the inside out,” he said.
“What?”
“I said you should put some cheese on that,” he said.
“Oh,” I said.
I can’t sleep any more. If I do, the little man who turns the fridge light on and off will come for me.
I know he’s there. I see clues sometimes. A tiny footprint in the butter. It could be a footprint, anyway. And surely there’s less juice than there was yesterday. I don’t begrudge him that, not at all. He has a vital job to do, and I appreciate it.
And he’s spoken to me. He’s never shown himself, but I’ve heard him. It was a bit of a shock the first time, but not as much as you might think. I guess I’ve always known he was there. That voice, coming out of the cold.
He said: “That one’s past its used by date.”
I said thanks, grabbed one of the others, and let the fridge door swing closed. Only then did I stop and process events.
He’s always been helpful like that:
“The mushies in the back are still good.”
“Some relish would be good on that.”
“You’ll regret it in the morning.”
But only ever in the dead still of night, with his own light the only illumination in the house. And never with anyone else. I got used to it. I woke up more and more at that hour. I’ve always had strange sleep patterns, and it wasn’t the first time I’d fallen into night-time snacking.
I had a girlfriend then, a smart, beautiful woman who slept eight and a half hours straight any night we were together and often wondered aloud why I was tired and irritable some days and not others with no apparent pattern. My answers didn’t make any sense to her. We fell apart after that.
When we hadn’t been together in a fortnight, when it was irreversible that we were broken but neither of us had yet said what needed to be said, I woke up one night alone with stomach cramps, a full bladder and one of those big pointless erections that serve as the downside to maleness. I couldn’t pee yet, so out of habit I opened the fridge. I stood there half-sleeping and unsure, goosepimpled flesh bathed yellow.
He said: “She’s making you fat.”
And then: “I need a new globe.”
Something was different, but I didn’t know what. At that hour, I know very little.
A few days ago the light in the fridge went. I just turn the light on in the kitchen instead. I thought he’d gone for good, and I didn’t miss him, but last night I was making a sandwich and I heard him again.
“I’m going to eat your eyeballs from the inside out,” he said.
“What?”
“I said you should put some cheese on that,” he said.
“Oh,” I said.
I can’t sleep any more. If I do, the little man who turns the fridge light on and off will come for me.
