Entrapped

24 - Riddles and clowns

Chloe's smartphone alarm awakens her at exactly seven o'clock on Saturday morning. She invited Hunter for breakfast before they are going to hit the road. Hunter wants to be at Hayley and talk to her not later than 8:45 before she opens the shop.

Chloe ponders the funny thing that happened last night while she steps into the shower. While the water refreshingly caresses her body, turbulent questions and concerns are rushing through her mind.

It doesn't make sense at all for no one could have entered the house. She feels as if madness is engulfing her when she thinks about it. It is so unreal, but it definitely happened! A thick cloud of Rum and Maple smoke in the kitchen was tangible evidence of the impossible! Could it be a coincidence? Why the same tobacco that Tony loved to smoke?

She hasn't told Isaac about it and feeling embarrassed only forwarded an explanation at the safety gate and an apology for having disturbed him. Isaac realized something was amiss, but she downplayed it by telling him she was upset that she disturbed him and Robert unnecessarily. He tried to pacify her by telling her that he would only leave later in the morning to start his work at nine o'clock. She then invited him to join her and Hunter for breakfast so that he and Hunter could get acquainted.

She now carries the weight of the unexplainable alone. How did her life change so drastically! She is meeting new, interesting people, but at the same time experiences the most horrible things! She has a logical explanation for the night sounds, but now this thing! If it only wasn't Rum and Maple! That familiar smell makes it so much worse because in her imagination she sees Tony on the veranda in silence, staring up in the sky, while he inhales the smoke deeply and leisurely blows it out. She hates nothing more than the unsolved because she is a logical person. She wants to yell out of frustration! What the hell is going on? Who threatens Zoey and Lyle and how on earth could there be a cloud of smoke in her kitchen?

Maybe she is losing her senses. Is this what happens when you are increasingly becoming mad? Maybe some non-existent things become so real that you experience them tangibly. Maybe anxiety in your brain could manipulate things to become palpable.

Could it be that she is only hard-headed? Maybe there are unknown dimensions and on different points you get ports to different realities. Or maybe this really is a haunted house where such things are possible! Why could rational, logical people only live here for two weeks maximum before they hurriedly left? Maybe her father was here in her kitchen! Maybe he is worried about her and that was his sign! Damn! Stop it, Chloe! Just forget it! It didn't happen!

Although, the alarm went off! The eye in the kitchen definitely picked up something! Then it must be something concrete. Oh no, Chloe, who says? You get false alarms, not so? Maybe the thing is dysfunctional. It could be a coincidence that there was a false alarm precisely at that time. A simple, blooming cockroach obviously stepped on the wrong electronic pad and triggered the false cacophony. The darn little thing! Maybe he burnt out and his bodily rests smelled like Rum and Maple or maybe it could be a giant cockroach that nibbled on Robert's Rum and Maple in the woods! Yes, that must be the explanation! Chloe is now laughing out loud!

Only if this happens again she will take it seriously. Until then she will think of it as a strange coincidence that could be logically explained and which she can't figure out at this stage. Just like the monkeys. Period Chloe, and should something like this happens again, she has Isaac that can search in her brain for loose screws and bolts! She laughs again loudly for her funny thoughts.

Chloe slips into an expensive, brown shirt and battleship grey trousers and puts on her farm boots. Now she is ready for the farm visit.

Later she has just finished preparing breakfast when she hears a knock on the front door. Relaxed she opens for Hunter because she uses her peephole.