Gutter(al)

You could hear it from down the street. Roaring like an ocean, slapping against the banks of the footpath. Gutteral screams and raised voices. Bins falling like dominos as they approached.

It couldn't be the moon. It was but a slither. Maybe it was the day getting even with night. I know this: he was angry, prehaps as terrified as me. I could smell it rising off of his scalp.

Screaming at me to stop staring. How the tables have turned. Me in my nightdress closing my door on the terror outside. Once I walked the streets in those shoes. Fury leaking from every pore. Scrambled through hedges naked with gravel cuts on my knees.

Prehaps I doubletake to check that I am still inside, and the past remains out.