You Hide, I Seek!
The house feels empty but I check it anyway, starting in the kitchen and working through from top to bottom in my search for you. 'Hide and seek!' the note says in block capitals pinned to the cork board and my heart jumps at the thought of you waiting somewhere close by, quivering as you wait for me to lay my hands on you. I catch a faint whiff of your scent in the bedroom but you aren't under the bed or in the wardrobes and I realise it is just a trace wafting in the air like the dust motes that slip silently around in the sunlight. You aren't doing a Psycho shower scene in the bathroom either and so I head back to the kitchen, knowing that you are somewhere out in the garden, hiding amidst the shrubbery.
The back door opens with a creak and I wonder if you quiver at the sound, knowing that I am getting closer. The gravel crunches under my feet as I walk across the patio and peer into the shed, disturbing only spiders with my gaze. I skirt the flower beds and tread on the lawn, feeling it soften my footsteps as I head towards the trees at the bottom of the garden. I can sense you now, feel you, smell you and I smile with pleasure at the thought of tracking you down to your lair like a beast. I step into the shaded cool under the branches and I hear a little hiss and I know you are behind the wide trunk of the oak, lurking in the long grass and the leaves and the scattered acorns that dot the ground like pebbles. Is your breath coming faster? Does your heart thump loudly in your breast?