"The Unknown Intruder and The Fence Party"

Every night, the kid remembers to check the window. Every night, it’s unlocked.

He is about to attach the lock, which is a flimsy chain - a hoop at one end that slips over a nail - when he wonders whether this nightly fear is based on anything real.

He opens the window and leans out.

There’s a guy down there in a cream suit. He looks like he’s been wearing it all day, in the office and in the pub. He’s looking up, as if searching for the best way to climb up the wall. Like he doesn’t do it several times a week.

“Hey,” the kid yells down. “How’s it going, dickhead?”

The guy just keeps looking up, planning his climb to the window.

Unnerved, the kid hurls down the first thing that comes to hand: a kitchen knife.

The guy steps aside and the knife hits the floor. He is now glaring up at the kid, who pulls the window closed and fumbles with the lock.

It’s at this point that he remembers that there is a back way in. He dashes to the back and checks the fence.

The fence is there, but it doesn’t go all the way across. So begins 20 minutes of adjustment and readjustment, trying to get a 20-foot section of fence to fit in a 26-foot gap. All the while, he looks beyond the fence at the place where the man will appear sooner or later: a black field that disappears into shadows and then trees.

Not long later, someone is walking out of the darkness.

The kid freezes and abandons his ministrations with the fence, ready to face this guy, whoever he is … whatever he is.

He is relieved to discover that it’s not the guy in the suit but a neighbour.

“Hi,” says the kid, trying to sound natural. “I’m trying to make the fence fit.”

The neighbour puts her shopping bags away and then returns to help.

More neighbours arrive from the forest. They’ve had a day at work or studying. A few help with the fence while the rest gather, smoking and drinking beer and white wine. There is a pleasant hum of people chatting about everything and nothing.

Soon, the fence stretches all the way across, at which point the kid starts thinking about barbed wire. Broken glass. Electricity. Another six feet of height.

“What’s going on?” someone asks him.

“I was fixing the fence,” the kid says, “and everyone started hanging out. There must be four hundred people here! It’s a fence party!”

The moment he says the words ‘Fence Party’, everybody leaves.

*****

Now it’s just him, and the fence, and the waiting.