I had long since zoned out, absentmindedly stirring the pot of soup I was attempting to make. I had never had much luck with cooking before, but my mother had always made soup out of the scooped out insides of the pumpkins my sister and I used to carve, and this year, I decided I wanted to try and do the same.
I snapped back to attention at the sound of a clatter behind me, and I spun around to look, the wooden spoon still in my hand and flicking soup across the room as I turned. The utensils I had used to open up and empty out the pumpkin, that had been sat nicely on the table, were scattered across the floor as if someone had pushed them all aside. Frowning, I crouched to pick them up, and I set them back on the table, certain that there was no way they could’ve rolled themselves off the surface.
I turned back to my soup, which had started furiously bubbling in the few moments I had left it alone, and started stirring it quickly in an attempt to placate it. I froze at the sound of another clatter, and turned again, this time much slower. The utensils I had just picked up off the floor were sat nicely on the table, but the Tupperware I had on the side across the room was now on the floor. I tried to remember how haphazardly it had been stacked, and shook my head at the memory of them being laid out safely and unable to fall by themselves.
I turned back to the soup, but the second I started stirring again, I heard a smash, outside the kitchen, further into the house. I turned the heat down for the soup, and put the spoon down on the side. I strode across the room, stepping over the Tupperware and leaving the kitchen. The pictures I had hung on the wall of me and my boyfriend were shattered on the floor. Another noise. I stepped over the broken glass, and ventured on, trying to find the source of the newest noise. Maybe a stray cat had managed to get inside my house, or something. If I could catch it, I could let it back out, hopefully before it broke everything.
I walked into my living room, and looked around at the destruction. Anything that had been on a surface was on the floor. I hadn’t heard anything that warranted a mess such as this. My sofa was on it’s side, as if someone had tipped it by leaning too far back on it. My coffee table was in the corner of the room, rather than the middle of it. I jumped back, gasping, as my television fell off the wall and smashed, screen down, on the floor. My hand covered my heart, and I could feel it pounding. That wasn’t the work of a stray animal, I had watched that fall with nothing touching it. It just tipped forward and ripped itself off the wall of its own accord.
I backed out of the living room, and went back to the kitchen, rushing forward to the hob when I saw my pot of soup bubbling over and spilling out onto the hob. I reached for the pan, but the heat coming from the handle, which had boiling liquid all over it, like the entirety of the hob, made me stop and look around for oven gloves or something to wrap around the handle. I grabbed a tea towel from the side, and folded it several times before using it to pick up the pot, and carry it over to the sink. I dumped it on the draining board, and went back to the hob to turn off the heat. Everything was wet. There was a pool of water across the hob, which thankfully hadn’t started to overflow onto the floor, but it would take more than a single tea towel to dry it out.
I turned to get some more tea towels, only to find a pile of them on the counter next to me, where there had been nothing a few seconds ago. I looked around the room, but there was no one there. I watched the utensils fling themselves off the table again, and chose to try and focus on one thing at a time, and dry out my hob before something broke. Of course, I didn’t anticipate the fact that it was boiling liquid, and that the hob would still be hot. Within seconds, I was across the room, with my hand under the cold tap, the tea towels and hob abandoned. Could this day get any worse?
I heard another shattering noise, and turned to face the direction of the sound.
“Why is this happening?” I shouted in frustration, my hand throbbing and somewhere between burnt and half frozen, the cold water trickling over my fingers.
“Don’t worry, it’s just me.”
If I had thought a voice would reply, I wouldn’t have said anything. I stood shock still, the only sound now the water going down the drain. It wasn’t just the fact that someone had said something, when I lived alone and didn’t have anyone around, that had me so scared. It was the fact that I recognised the voice. How could I not? My boyfriend’s voice was ingrained into my very being, one of the only things I felt I could trust sometimes. He would spend hours whispering into my ear, his breath tickling my neck and moving my hair.
But my boyfriend had died last year. I had been sat next to him as the steady beeping turned into one, continuous, noise, as his eyes slipped closed never to open again. I had held his hand as he died, so there was no way he could be in our home.
A breeze tickled my neck, and I shivered as he whispered in my ear, like he had so many times before. This time, though, it didn’t make me laugh as it tickled me, or make me smile with the words. It made the hair on my arms stand up, and my heart feel like it had given up trying to keep beating.
“I’ve come home.”
And done!
Once again, a late post because I only just wrote it. Whoops.
I've been busy though! I carved five pumpkins this afternoon!
I was hoping to do a book review tomorrow... I haven't even started reading the book. We shall see what happens.
Anyway, that's all for now...
Bye!
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