Three Steps

Three steps. That’s all it takes. I know that’s all it takes to reach the laundry room door from the stairs. It’s around a little corner, then three steps. I’ve been living here for five years now, I know how long it takes to reach my own damn laundry. I even feel silly writing about it, but I thought I should document this somewhere.

And I’ve walked it at night too, all the time, without bothering with the hall light. It’s not far so I just keep my hand out until I touch the door. Then I turn the laundry light on. Once done, I turn it back off and head upstairs, and from that angle I can be guided with the tiny light from the kitchen.  There’s a little nightlight that we leave on all the time, and the archway to it is just on the other side of the stairs. Once done, I turn it off and head back upstairs, guided by the nightlight that spills past the archway and into the hall from the kitchen. So, tell me why, last night, I head down, turn at the bottom of the stairs, my hands already out, but I don’t touch the door. I take those three steps. It should be there, I should feel the door by now, but I don’t. I take another step but it’s still not there. I stop, wondering if I just miscounted and walk again but the hall keeps going. And I can’t see anything.

I hold still then, but I can feel my heart starting to beat faster. That slight unease of noticing something is wrong, but pretending everything is fine, and I take a breath. I’m in my own house, I know that much. I just got turned around somehow.

So, I turn deliberately, and I still can’t see. The kitchen light is gone, and everything is pitch black. I should be facing mom’s room from here, with the kitchen arch, and the stairs leading back up, to my left. I think, maybe there was a power outage, but my eyes should have adjusted to that by now, and they hadn’t.

The dark was …

It was like I could feel it grating against my eyes.

I felt dread settling in as my hands went clammy, thinking I’ve gone blind. Nothing hurt, I couldn’t feel anything.

I fling my arms out, knowing that I should be facing the hall and kitchen, trying to catch a wall. It was an old, narrow hallway. You could easily touch both sides with your arms bent. But there was nothing. The walls were gone.

I shouted. I don’t even know if it was a word but I was just thinking of waking up mom. Her room was in that same hall, and should only have been a few paces away from me. I felt like a child, screaming for my mom, but I did.

And she didn’t answer. It felt like my voice was working, and I heard it. She should have heard me. But there was nothing.

Just the dark.

I crouched then. I couldn’t find the door, or the stupid walls, but my feet were definitely on the floor. I was standing on it. So, I knelt, and went to touch the hardwood but almost tumbled over as my hand went through that too!

I was shaking by that point, not wanting to move. My feet were on something, I felt that, but my hands kept … swimming in the darkness.

Trying to literally get a grip on anything, I grabbed my foot. At least I found that and probably cried out again at the contact.

My foot was there, so was my leg. I was there.

Forcing myself to breathe normally, though my heart was pounding, I kept that hand on my foot and went to touch the floor that way. Because my feet were standing on something!

Apparently not, because my fingers wrapped around my toes and the bottom of my foot, which felt pressed flat, through the damn floor again. There was nothing in the way! I could feel the wood floors under my toes, that flat pressure that’s always there when you’re standing.

I don’t know how long I stayed there, but I had to move. I had to do something. I couldn’t stay there.

As a kid they always told you to stay put when you’re lost. But I couldn’t do that.

This darkness was wrong. Like … like it was watching me.

So, I stood up, scrubbed the tears off my face, and inched my left foot forward. I didn’t want to lift it, lose that one contact I had, so I slid towards the kitchen.

And it worked. I still felt the floor under my sock. I felt ridiculous again, but I started shuffling and sliding forward. It seemed normal too, the same hardwood with its little nicks and wear.

I still couldn’t see, and the hall lasted a lot longer than three steps, but the dark changed. It wasn’t so black anymore, so … oppressive. I looked up from my feet (not that I could see them) but I saw the faint wallpaper. It was my hallway, just as the kitchen light pours in, but it looked like it was one hundred feet away.

I bolted for that wallpaper. I probably should have been more careful with my footing, so I didn’t fall through the non-floor. But I landed on seemingly solid flooring.

The darkness slowly left, sticking to the edges of my vision like cotton, but I finally reached the wall and practically hugged it. I just leaned there for a minute, but still paranoid I made for the hallway light and flicked it on.

Light blared, and I briefly hoped it wouldn’t wake mom, but I was in that archway, the one connecting the hall to the kitchen. I could see totally fine.

And the laundry door was right there! Just three paces away with its normal painted, white wood and brass door handle. I darted for it, with a quick spike of fear that the darkness would switch the lights off, but I practically slammed into the laundry space. It opened right up, and I immediately turned the light on in there too.

Spinning back around I was still in the well-lit hallway. My cat was even sitting at the bottom step, blinking at me and expecting dinner.

I am not walking down that hall without the lights on ever again. I’ll do laundry on the weekends from now on, in the day. I don’t know what that dark was, but I might have to get a nightlight for a while.