You awake in the middle of the night recalling no dream. The house is still. Outside it is as quiet as it gets. It doesn’t matter whether you live in the city or the country, that is the way it is. In the far distance you hear the faint drone of a stuck car horn. Closing your eyes again, rearranging the pillow, the covers, you make the moves to re-enter sleep. But sleep does not come. If you open your eyes it will still be dark, so you keep them closed. It only makes it harder to fall asleep. The car horn is still going. Time passes and you realize that the horn has been stuck for an impossibly long time. Wherever it is must be far away from anyone or anywhere, or somebody would have cut it off. Still you do not find sleep. After half an hour, you think, wouldn’t the battery have run down? It must be something else. You finally get back to sleep. This time. And maybe the next time.

But one night you will awake and hear that distant car horn, stuck on that mournful chord. You will recognize it and recall this time, and yes, all the other times, still wondering what this thing can be. And then it will seem to get louder, as though it’s approaching. It will suddenly swoop into your room, impossibly loud, unimaginably near, and enter your head without any flash. There will be no time to open your eyes. Then, it will just as suddenly be gone. There will be no more time to open your eyes. It was the banshee.

Paul DeMarinis (c) 2017