Sound of Snoring

I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, being punished for something that was not actually my fault. Taken from my bed by an angry father in the middle of the night. I had received several good slaps and smacks, as well as a few clouts and pushes. I had then been made to stand on a particular spot, on a cold linoleum floor (we were not posh enough for tiles, well, we couldn’t afford them really) in the bathroom, the middle of the night, to a point of time where cramps were affecting the muscles of my legs and feet. And the person responsible, who had then threatened me with great severity not to move from that spot, acknowledging by his expression that there would dreadful consequences should I do so, had fallen asleep.

And now the heavy booming sound, vibrated from his nasal passages and reverberated through the open door from the lounge, across the narrow hallway to the bathroom, through the very doors he had deliberately left open so he could notice if I had moved from the place he had made me stand. Reverberating, to where I stood as I waited in fear of his intimidating promise. The vibrating pressure of the sound, clear over the thwumping sound of my cramping, shaking feet. I was surprised. Stunned even. I leaned to my right as much as possible in an attempt to see if my father was ‘faking it’. Perhaps he wasn’t really snoring, but toying with me. Making me think he was asleep, just so as to catch me out? Lulling me into a false sense of security so I would move. Testing to see if I would actually risk leaving the place he had put me, the spot where my feet were supposed to be. Would he suddenly stop the snoring and leap from the chair to catch me out?

Okay, ‘leap from the chair’ was probably the wrong wording for my father’s then physical ability. He himself had once become very angry and upset with us all, when at a dinner one evening, while he had narrated a story from his youth in which he had once leapt a fence ‘Like a Gazelle’ (was the actual term he used). Unfortunately, this only brought an outburst of  raucous laughter even then, from the children, mainly the older ones, who knew;

            A: what a gazelle actually looked like, and

            B: what our father looked like.

Regrettably we could not picture our father having a different physical form as a youth, so none of us could imagine him

            A: leaping ‘like a Gazelle’ or

            B: Actually leaping. 

So let’s redo that. I was very concerned that should I move from the specific assigned spot on the cold linoleum floor, my father (who’s snoring tones were now generating some volume), would notice and immediately stop the snoring to then come and deal further with me. Was he pretending, or had he really fallen asleep while punishing me? Was that even possible?

(Continued tomorrow)