I awoke to that damnable alarm. Oh to never hear that alarm and go to those things that sucked my life away day after day. However, today was different, I felt a burden on me; like eyes watching in the aether of the early morning. And I looked and saw the time. It was hours before my alarm was to go off, and then I heard it.
There were four knocks at my door.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Each the same as the last in forcefulness but spaced curiously longer as they went. I arose in a stupor, for it was very early and I am not one for mornings. I looked through the window of my door and saw him, or rather them. A man with a large beard and very old ruined clothes that must have been rather nice when they were new stared back with sunken eyes. For a moment we paused and had a cosmic conversation, and in his eyes I saw truth and understanding. I say that I saw them; there was a dog with him, staring at my with eyes that had an indescribable spark in them. It was like she smelled my anxiousness and knew my woes. And anxious I was as I yelled through the door and asked what he wanted at such an hour. He continued to stare and said nothing. We stared awkward and still until I noticed another visitor. Across the street was a small cat sitting in the pale light of the predawn. It stared and swished it's tail.
Not soon after I had noted the feline it arose and began to slowly cross the street towards my house. The man grabbed the handle to the door, for which i thanked God was locked tightly, and exclaimed something in what sounded my ear to be some Semitic language. The terror on his eyes grew as the cat slowly approached and the dog turned to growl at the now hissing feline.
I don't know if I caught the irrational panic in his voice or if the early hour had caused a lapse in my judgement but I unlocked the door, and the man and his dog came in and locked the door behind him. He stood at an uncomfortable distance studying me. I should say that they engaged in this activity, as the dog stared equally as knowingly. I backed away and, not knowing what else to say, offered him a drink. He seemed to understand me and went to the bathroom and drank from the sink in as orderly a fashion as one can do such a thing, and his dog followed suit after he was finished.
I told him, not sure what had possessed me to let such a strange fellow into my home, informed him that he would need to leave and that I was sorry. He stopped drinking and placed his backpack on the ground in the hall and took out a very old book. He counted the pages carefully and methodically turned to a certain page, counting very carefully with his dirty hands. The book was printed in Latin and each page was marked heavily with notes in all sorts of languages and scripts.
He finally arrived at his literary destination and lifted the book to show me the page he had turned to. On it was a drawing woven into the text of two men on opposite ends of a door. The man on the outside had an equine companion with him that seemed to glow like the sun. The equine had something on its forehead but it had been crudely drawn over and covered in white, covering even some of the surrounding text. The man himself had a shadow about him, like a great burden on his mind, and he looked at the viewer of the picture as if he knew the medium he was a part of, and the shadow had eyes and looked intently at the viewer as well. Behind the man and the horse was another figure, but it was impossible to discern it's form as it was violently scratched out with ink in a highly erratic matter. So much so that the integrity of the paper was failing in that spot.
The man on the inside held an open book and all sorts of fantastical horrors flowed out of it. Arms and suggestions of words, sorceries and cosmic beings secreted from the book and into the room to be lost amongst the words on the page of the book. And the twistings from inside the book were wrapped around the man's neck and were choking him, but he did not seem to know.
I said, "Who are you?" and he turned the page and on the next page the letters were circled "IAMMVT." I determined repeated my question, somewhat shaken but determined to gain peace of mind through an answer, but just as I spoke there was a scratching at the door, and a friendly meow invited me to the door. As I turned the man grabbed my arm forcefully, to the point of pain, and would not let go until I committed to sitting down with him and ignoring the inviting meows from outside.
The dog went into the other room and took a book off of my bookshelf. I do not know which was more unsettling, the thought of a dog with it's foul mouth ruining one of my beloved books or the thought of a dog knowing so precisely which book it wanted. It was Alice's Adventures in wonderland, a book that I had hoped to pass on to my daughter, and it was hardcover and bound in pink. I admit it was rather amusing to see this dirty bearded man pour over the pink book like it was some ancient grimoire of secret knowledge. He turned the pages back and forth and mumbled to himself. I saw him counting on his fingers as he turned scoured the book for it's secrets. He apparently arrived on the page he sought because he dropped the book open to that page and began to chant hysterically. He grabbed me and spoke face to face to me his strange ecstatic utterances, and he overpowered me and rubbed his beard upon my beard, and I felt an incredible uneasiness. He compelled me to look at the open page on the book and I saw a strange sight. Certain letters stood out, why I couldn't say. Nothing was remarkable about them in and of themselves. But together, they made the shape of something that I dare not relate in full. The letters showed an abomination of threes, and it stared out at me from the page with three menacing eyes, and the the words on the page read, "Meow." and outside the cat smiled through the window and stared through my fleshy vessel and into my very soul.
