Originally posted on greenfairydotcom

00.35am Go to bed.

00.51am Woken from the very verge of a lovely dream about Morrissey by a suspicious tapping and scraping noise in the room.

00.52am Briefly debate the cause of this most unwelcome distraction before concluding perfectly calmly and rationally that it's mice.

00.53am Scurry under duvet, blocking up all gaps to the outside world.

00.54am Come to the surface gasping for air and lie in the dark for a while, listening to the noise in abject terror.

01.11am Noise still there

01.23am Noise still there.

01.30am Reason slowly returns. Mice scuttle. They do not tap on skirting boards and ceilings with spoons. Try to make full use of this logic to assuage my fear - what's the worst it could be?

01.30.30am Dive under duvet, resolving never to try and think about that again as long as I live.

01.37am Notice upstairs neighbours are up and banging around. Ponder the possibility of them being the cause of the noise, so as to take mind off thoughts of giant bloodthirsty cockroach/slug hybrids.

01.49am Tapping now coming most insistantly from the ceiling direction. Could be massive insect with suckers for feet strolling across to eat me, could be neighbours dancing to the 1940s show tunes they have suddenly started to play.

02.02am Show tunes stop. Noise continues.

02.11am Secondary thought occurs. What if tapping noise is precurser to huge cracks appearing across ceiling which will eventually make it fall in? Bedroom ceiling has, in fact, collapsed once before. But this time I was elsewhere watching snooker in the rain and thought the noise of my house falling down about me was merely thunder, until huge dust clouds reached me.

02.25am Fear of ceilng collapsing on head slightly greater than fear of light-triggered organism going for my throat and turn on lamp.

02.26am No mice. No mutant space bugs. No cracks.

02.31am Noise still there.

02.32am Take duvet and go and sleep on sofa.