My parents decided that the family needed to go on vacation this year, so they booked a house on a lake for a week. I, however, being the workaholic that I am, decided to only go for the weekend, wanting to get as many as hours as possible that week. That left me at home alone for several nights. T
here's something about being home alone that makes everything seem that much more nefarious.
Did the house just settle and let out a nearly indiscernible creak? It's the killer standing right outside my bedroom. He's about to burst in and stab me til I'm dead.
Did the air conditioner just start blowing through the vent? Someone somewhere somehow broke in and is leeching poison gas through the vents; I'm going to wake up dead.
Did a car door slam outside? It's a gang of very unprofessional killers, about to burst through my front door, guns blazing.
Did the phone just ring? The sniper is in a tree in my backyard, calling my phone to get me to move in front of the window so he can shoot me.
When you're home alone, every little sound can be translated into something terrible. It probably didn't help that I watched Numb3rs a lot before going to bed, and that I saw every episode of Criminal Minds last semester, or that I had just finished reading "The Shining." After watching that many shows about murders both deserved and not, every action I perform, from parking the car in the garage to walking upstairs while talking on the phone to a friend to locking the bedroom door so I'll feel safer while I sleep, brought to mind a murder scene. Pulling into the garage: there's a killer hiding next to the door, about to shoot me; walking upstairs on the phone: he's hiding just inside the bathroom, waiting for me to hang up so he can pounce; locking the bedroom door: he's hiding under the bed, cackling because I just locked myself in with him.
By the third and last night I spent alone, I was lying curled up in bed, a few more creaks away from sticking my thumb in my mouth and screaming "Mommy!" I was a car-door slam or two away from finding myself on the floor, arms clasped around my knees, rocking back and forth and moaning. It took me an hour to fall asleep, because every time I got close, I'd come up with another way I could get brutally murdered in my own bed. And even worse than the noise was the silence. The house was just as silent at midnight that Tuesday night as it was the Saturday before, when my parents were home with me; the difference was that when I was alone, the silence oppressed. It weighed down on me, until every thought pulsed against my brain with thunderous volume. I was torn between abject terror at every sound, and begging for noise just so the silence would cease.
Needless to say, by the time the next morning rolled around I was pumped and ready for vacation. The moral of the story is: staying at home alone is scary as heck, no matter what anyone might say to you. All those people you see running around, boasting about not being afraid of the dark? They're either idiots or liars. (Unless they're Macaulay Culkin in "Home Alone." He was pretty awesome).
True story.
