The Poet – Chapter 2

Watch and Realise

It was 7 a.m. when the alarm rang. Begrudgingly he turned it off and got up with a sigh. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he walked into the kitchen in his underwear to make some coffee. That was Dante’s morning routine.

While waiting for his coffee to brew, he sleepily tapped a poem into his phone’s Notes. It had come to him in his dreams and he wanted to write it up before he would forget.

I close my eyes

Darkness all around me

Light as a feather

I slowly float away…

He was about to start the next paragraph, when a whatsapp message came in.

UNKNOWN, was all it listed under the sender.

His heart started racing like mad. With shaking fingers he opened the message. A video popped up on the screen, with the caption: Watch and Realise.

Okay, okay, don’t panic. It’s only a stupid video. Hands still trembling, he pressed play.

There wasn’t much to see in the video amidst all the darkness. At first Dante didn’t understand what he was looking at. Then a couple of light sensors came on and a front door appeared on his screen that looked familiar to him. It was a solid oak door with deer antlers engraved in it.

He paused the video. Full of disbelief he stared at the frozen image. That asshole was at his girlfriend’s house! Furious, he pressed play and the image started moving again. The camera veered from left to right along the eery light of the lamp posts and finally focused on a gate at the back of the house. The gravel under the feet of the person filming was crunching. A hand came on screen, covered by a black, leather glove, opening the gate. Squeaking slightly, the door opened.

After a little while, a window came into view that was slightly ajar. The black leather glove showed up again, and carefully pushed open the window. For a second the image went blurry – but then the living room came into view. From the living room, the view progressed to the hall way and the stairs, and once upstairs that glove showed up again. This time, a bedroom door was opened. Dante’s blood started boiling. The camera person was now in his girlfriend’s bedroom, who was sleeping peacefully. Slowly the person walked to the bed and tilted the view down. He was so close that her face was fully visible now. She mumbled a bit in her sleep, but slept on none the wiser.

The camera turned, and the camera person came into view. Dante couldn’t see much of his face, as he was wearing a ski mask. The only thing he could see were his eyes, gleaming menacingly in the darkness, looking straight at the camera. A gloating look appeared in his eyes and Dante realised that the camera man was laughing. Dante was going crazy. And to make it worse, the camera man gave him the finger, as if to say: watch and realise!

The screen cut out.

Furiously, Dante banged his fist on the kitchen table and roared, while his coffee had long gone cold.

To be continued