The sniffing

It's no big deal, really, is it, that someone sniffs? But it is, it is when they keep on and on doing it, non stop, this appalling awful noise. it seems to suck the air away, wherever he is, and then I can't breathe. My lungs begin to tighten, and before I know it, I'm struggling for breath.

You mustn't think I bear him any malice, any personal animosity. He's quite a pleasant person, really, quiet and undistinguished. He pays his rent on time; he keeps his room clean. No problems. Apart from the sniffing, that interminable, infuriating, incessant sniffing. Using my air up.

Every night he goes to bed at eleven o'clock. I hear him go up the stairs, sniff, sniff. He crosses the landing. He opens his door. He closes his door. The sniffing continues. I wait. I sit and wait.

An hour passes, and another. As the our of one strikes, I rise, and begin my pursuit. My slow, deliberate, silent pursuit, half an inch every thity seconds. As two o'clock strikes I arrive at his door, and then begin to depress the handle very, very slowly. Half an later the door begins to swing open. utterly silently, of course, for I have been regularly oiling the hinges. How can you say someone with such foresight is mad?

The moonlight spills into the room, falling across the bed. He's sprawled across it in deep sleep, totally silent. He's not sniffing, he's not even snoring, he's silent. And so, carefully and silently, I withdraw.

For the next eight nights, I contune my pursuit. Every nigth, the moon wanes, and the darkness increses. In between the walls, dripping from the ceiling, it gains. On the ninth night, there is no moon. The darkness is everywhere. I cross the landing. I place my hand on the handle of his door and depress it; the door opens. Unnerved by the darkness, I stumble.

He wakes. I hear him. He starts, he sits up. He cries out. I do not move. I am a patch of darkness. So is he. He screams; I do not move. For an hour, I do not move. His breathing is fast, panicky. He does not sniff. Two o'clock strikes, he slumps, he needs to sleep. He sniffs.

With a single bound I am across the room. I grab a pillow; I smother him. Gasps, sniffs, gasps some more. Laboured, hoarse breathing. Then, then..nothing.