Blink

The dog was barking again.
My temples throbbed. A heavy fog seemed to weigh itself down upon me. The dog was barking.
I couldn’t quite tell where it was; on the same floor or below, it didn’t matter since it carried just as well to me, incessant, as I lay there, immobile, thinking of getting to my feet.
The barking stopped. As I sighed relief a thunderous knocking sounded throughout the house. I lay there while the elusive canine furiously warned off the visitor at the door, further assaulting my pounding head.
‘Someone at the door’.
My mind, as if intoxicated, begrudgingly pieced itself together.
Someone at the door! They could help! Get me on my feet and out of here!
My eyes widened as I tried, in vain, to clear my head. I had to get to the visitor. Let them know I was in here. Open the door to them. Escape.
My arms felt weak, fragile, and I could barely pull off the thin blanket covering me. Attempting to sit up I was met with resistance – and bewilderment. I couldn’t move. My legs and back, alien to me, refused to shift. What had done this to me? How had I become so powerless, crippled, helpless?
The front door roared with another vicious knock. The dog responded in kind.
Begging my body to move, even an inch, so I could get help, if not from this visitor then the next one, I couldn’t help but ask more questions. Who had bought me here? What was responsible for this paralysis?
The visitor knocked again.
My heart started to pound as hard as the knocking. I was realising, and coming to accept, that I could not open the door. I couldn’t get to them, and my saviour would inevitably walk away like so many more visitors to follow.
I lay there, motionless, embracing fate, without the will left to fight what had already won.
The knocking stopped.
The dog fell silent.
And I just lay there.
“Help…”