upon my door there came a knocking

I fell asleep early last night. With the autumn quickly approaching, I find myself falling into old, die-hard habits like staying up until 3am writing abstract poetry and reading philosophy. Needless to say, my current schedule is not very conducive to these practices. So after four days of non-sleep, I found my body properly shutting down around 10. I was actually a little excited as I drifted off midst the umpteenth episode of CSI that day; then just as I was falling into the perfect dream world, someone knocked on my door. I quickly opened and shut my eyes, hoping that if I ignored the meek knock, the person behind it would simply leave me, that I might get a quality night's sleep. I laid still for a moment trying desperately to fight off the barrage of thoughts now virulently cursing through my head. At some point during this great flood, I remembered that earlier I told my neighbor that I would look over her appraisal letter before she sent it off to the bureau the next day. I also have this nasty habit of not being able to let people down. Reluctantly, I rose from my very much prone position and made my way to the door, and even though the place reeked of my bachelorhood I threw it open.

Much to my surprise, it wasn't my neighbor at all but Chica. She was standing there in work scrubs and wearing a groggy smile. "I came to see my Dan! I just couldn't help it," she exclaimed. The gift of such a pleasurable unanticipated visit swept my annoyance away apace.

We didn't say much. She let off some work steam talking lackadaisically for a short while, mostly about her first week at a new job. But for the most part we simply sat there and held each other, just two people finding the comfort they needed in one another. As the credits of Family Guy were rolling, she rose and started to gather her things. "Leaving so soon?" I asked, have joking, half hoping. She leaned over and kissed me on the forehead and without saying a word she left.