The Scream

Photo by Gabriel Matula on UnsplashFew things alarm me more than a blood-curdling, soul-rending, there’s-a-serial-killer-behind-you scream. Anytime I watch a TV show or a movie with the big-boobed bimbo crying out in terror, I always feel sorry for the person doing the sound. You know she had to try that scream a few dozen times before she got it right. I suspect the combat-boot-wearing sound girl eventually took off the headphones, walked up to the starlet, and stomped on her stiletto-wearing feet to help her to give a convincing performance.

Personally, I don’t scream very often contrary to what Tex, my best friend from high school, says. I did not scream when he lunged at me from the depths of my closet. Had I been able to access any bodily function such as speech, coherent thought, or proper use of my legs, I might have. My body tried to run, but someone (I suspect my baby brother) glued my feet to the floor. It’s an odd experience when the torso tries to run away and hide under the sheets without the legs cooperating. I fell over with my feet still in the same spot. That is surprisingly handy since I didn’t want to pee all over my bed.

The most recent scream occurred a few days ago. My wife and I were turning off lights and checking doors before going to bed. She had just extinguished the lights in the kitchen and was standing in the doorway when she released the most terrifying sound I have every heard in my life. For perspective, I watched the original Friday the 13^th movies. I saw all of them from the first to number LXXIV. (That’s 74 in American Numerals). I watched Freddy dismember countless coeds and Michael Meyers (the fictional killer, not the Austin Powers one) stab students. This scream made all of those seem like a wimpy whimper.

What did I do? I am a man of action! In 4 seconds, I ran 83.2 miles in place while performing a perfect quintuple pirouette followed by a double back flip while searching for the source and the cause of the cacophonous caterwauling. By the way, if you do a back flip while running, you can leave footprints on the ceiling. The source of the scream was my lovely wife. I prepared to do battle with the ax-wielding serial killer who had to be lurking the darkest depths of the kitchen. I suspected he was hiding behind the coffee pot.

As inaudible words screeched from my wife, I shouted at the darkness. “Get back you blob! I know karate and three other Chinese words!”

“No, not blob!” shouted my wife. “BUG! A bug landed on me. I don’t know where it went.”

“Okay, but where is the ax murderer?” I asked, still debating between fight and flight.

Ignoring my question, she asked one of her own. “Is it still on me?” She was dancing something akin to the cha-cha after ingesting a Red Bull, meth and cocaine cocktail.

After carefully combing through her hair with my fingers, I assured her the vicious, killer, tiny-machete-carrying bug had fled. I’m pretty sure it was almost as scared of her scream as she was of it. Almost. We never saw the bug that night. Or the dog for that matter. She didn’t come running at the scream. I think she was hiding under a bed in the farthest corner of the house. I always thought she had Jack Russel terrier, chihuahua, with a hint of pit bull. I now believe there is a strain of chicken in her pedigree as well.

After making sure there were no killers or killer bugs under the bed, my wife and I began the arduous process of falling asleep. By arduous, I mean I lightly rubbed her back so she could drift off in 25 seconds. I remained on alert well into the wee hours of the morning. I was guarding against serial killers and bugs. Also, my heart needed to slow down below 180 beats a minute.