Panic

Beep-beep.
That’s funny, I think, why’s the alarm reactivating itself. It usually only does that after a panic button has been hit. I haven’t hit a panic button. Wait, maybe D did when he drove out the gate. I phone D.
“Did you hit the panic button?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
“Not even by accident?”
‘No.”
“Oh, okay.”
Well, I think, if the panic button has been hit, even accidentally, the alarm company will phone to check. But they don’t. Oh well, I think, blip on the system.
It’s 06h45, I decide to go back to bed for a bit to gather my thoughts for the day. I lie back against the pillows and close my eyes. I’ve a lot on my mind, there’s too much to ponder about. I tell myself to relax, to be in the moment.
But in the moment something doesn’t feel right. I can’t hear anything untoward but my sixth sense is twitching.
Then I hear a whistling call. It may be someone whistling for their dog. Only it sounds like it might be in the garden, or just beyond the perimeter wall.
I push myself up, listening carefully.
The chime on the alarm sounds.
Which zone? The patio.
There’s something or someone out there.
I tell myself it’s probably a guinea fowl, a dove or a cat.
The chime is going crazy – bee-bee-beep, bee-bee-beep.
That’s not an animal out there. It doesn’t feel like an animal.
I start to sneak down the passage. I glance through the spare bedroom window. I can’t see anything in the garden – not even a dove or a guinea fowl.
I edge forward, towards the family room and the patio doors. I still can’t see anything. I’m glancing left and right.
There’s a rush of wings past my study window. Something, or someone, has startled a guinea fowl – really startled – they don’t usually fly off so fast.
A shadow appears at the edge of the window and the next second a huge shape fills the window.
A man - big, black, peering in.
All I feel is heat. The most phenomenal heat rising in and around me. Everything goes utterly silent. We stare at each other. I’m paralysed, standing there in only a t-shirt, the man staring at me.
Then he turns, points to the badge on his lapel.
The security guard!
But what’s he doing here.
I fumble with the door key, trusting that he is who he indicates he is. Trusting on my sixth sense that automatically assures me his is ‘okay’.
“The silent alarm was activated,” he tells me.
“But why didn’t you ring the gate bell?”
“We’re not allowed to.”
“Why did no one phone to check, like they usually do?”
“I don’t know,” he says.
“How did you get in?” I ask.
“I came over the wall.”
“You nearly scared me to death,” I say and tell him about the attack on my mother – a month ago, now.
I let him out the gate and thank him, despite scaring the living daylights out of me, for coming so quickly.
Oh be still my beating heart.