Nocturnal Ninja

/ Diane Henders

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a light sleeper. Even while I’m dead asleep, part of my brain is alert for the merest whisper of any unusual sound.

Which is why I jerked awake a couple of nights ago with all my attention focused on the pitch-black corner of our bedroom. I’d heard something moving!

The last time I heard something in that corner there was a mouse skittering around, so this time I was instantly at DEFCON1.

But the sound that woke me hadn’t sounded like skittering. It was more like the surreptitious brush of fabric against the wall.  And that was impossible, because that corner is filled by a large peace lily plant (and by ‘large’ I mean ‘gargantuan’ — over four feet across).

I stared wide-eyed into the darkness, my half-awake brain conjuring ridiculous thoughts of some ninja intruder who had somehow bypassed our security system and sneaked through our closed bedroom door.

After a few heart-thumping moments, I woke up enough to realize that nobody could turn our noisy door handle without waking me; and if some ninja was actually skillful enough to do that, s/he wouldn’t be careless enough to brush audibly against the wall.

By then all was silent. I stared into the gloom for a while longer, but my eyelids were drooping. I’d tossed my clothes on the chair before I went to bed.  Maybe they’d shifted.  Whatever.  *yawn*

I was dropping back to sleep when I heard it again: the Surreptitious Rustle!

I bolted up in bed and grabbed my flashlight, glaring into the plant corner and seeing… a plant. Nothing else. No movement.  No ninjas.

Fine.

I turned off the flashlight, assured my drowsy and slightly incredulous Hubby that everything was okay, and lay down again.

And then… *RUSTLE*

What the HELL?!?

After another foray with the flashlight, I finally remembered that I’d watered and rotated the plant before I went to bed. It had been thirsty and a bit wilted, and now it was rehydrating and straightening up. And in the process, it was rearranging its big leaves against the wall.

I fell back on the pillow with relief, but I still didn’t sleep well with that monster plant crouching in the corner and quietly shifting position. And I may or may not have heard it mutter, “Feed me, Seymour!”

So from now on I’m sticking to my usual routine of watering plants in the morning. At least in the daylight I’ll be able to see them coming for me.

Any ninjas in your world this week?  (And if there were, would you even know?)

The ninja peace lily. I think I’ll name it Audrey…

40 thoughts on “Nocturnal Ninja”

  1. LOL….I can only relate…..I am a very sound sleeper, but will wake up immediately to “unfamiliar” sounds. It’s the Daddy (when the girls were still living at home) protector gene and the husband protector gene. That gene woke me up to a weird sound in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago. It was a muffled high pitch noise like nothing I had ever heard before. I laid in bed listening and heard it again. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. We have two Maine Coons, so was it them…..no…they were both perched at the end of the bed sound asleep. Was it coming from outside? I got up and did a complete check of the house…..nothing inside or out….all was quiet with the world. Got back into bed and just then I heard it again….my wife was doing something between a high pitch snore or purring with her nighttime breathing….wasn’t every breath, just periodically. In hindsight I had rolled over in my sleep putting my ear right by her mouth…..go figure…..

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  3. I could have sworn I’d commented on this post, Diane, when I read it during the week. And not only that, I could have sworn I’d clicked ‘Like’ as well, but apparently not. There are more strange things going on in this world than the things that go bump in the night variety!
    So… has Audrey done anything else since? Like, for example, moving to a different corner of the room? Or saying a friendly “Hello!”?
    I had someone or something say “Hello!” to me one morning when I was by myself. I put it down to my ghost, Dot, but I’ve never been that sure…

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    • Yikes! I’d be concerned if I heard a “hello” from thin air, but I guess as long as it was friendly it’d be okay. Audrey has been very quiet and peaceful lately, so I’m hoping her nocturnal antics have come to an end. Time will tell… 😉

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  4. No clothes on the chair!?

    I’m a light sleeper as well and I still haven’t figured out whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. When we lived on our sailboat, it was the best thing as I could sense anything out of the ordinary, which could mean the difference between life and death – while sailing or at anchor.

    But now that I’m in a camper van or a house taking care of people’s animals, all I’m doing is listening to raindrops or dogs dreaming about running in the fields. Yeah… that’s what keeps me awake, followed by being tired the following day. And it’s not that rain or dogs going for imaginary runs mean the difference between life or death. Time for bed!

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    • It’s too bad we can’t turn our alertness up or down as the situation requires! I’d have a hard time house-sitting because it takes me quite a while to get used to all the “normal” household sounds, and every house is different. I’m glad it’s working for you, though! 🙂

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  8. Have you people never seen “Monsters, Inc”? Everyone knows that monsters disappear with light. It was probably Mike or Sully, trying to collect a scream.
    I only have things that take on mythical proportions when hubby is out of town. When he is, I can’t sleep at night, and usually just plan all night activities, watching movies, painting my house, sewing quilts, that sort of thing. I fall asleep near dawn as the monsters go to bed. Thank goodness he only goes away once a year. Absolutely ridiculous, but imagination is an incredible thing.

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  10. That is amazing! Imagine water, or lack of it, making that much of a difference.

    That’s a really healthy, hearty plant, though. You might want to move it to another room before it gets any bigger, just in case it evolves while it’s sitting there . . .

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    • Peace lilies are wonderfully tough – it’s amazing how they can wilt and then bounce back as though nothing had happened. Any plant that lives in my house has to be able to make do with one watering per week, and Audrey has been going strong for more years than I can remember. I’m afraid to repot her, though, in case I give her an inch and she decides to take over the whole house!

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  11. Yey, madness and scary.
    I love it I’ve never trusted plants, nothing seems to survive in my flat, my mother’s plants seem to live even if I forget to water them for weeks on end.

    My friend loved book one and is going to read the second, so you now have a fan in Spain. I have been given her a link to the blog.
    She has tried to make book one last as long as possible as her mum is currently in hospital and she is staying with her at the hospital.

    Like you I sleep with ears open the slightest sound wakes me, even neighbours leaving for work or coming home. I no longer panic as I have figured out what it is. But occasionally I do wonder if it could be someone in my flat

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    • After I’ve lived somewhere for a while my brain gets used to the everyday noises — you must be doing the same in your new flat, learning to filter out the normal ‘coming-and-going’ noises. But I hate that moment when you hear a brand-new noise and think, “Wait, what?!?”

      Hooray, I’m so glad your friend loved Never Say Spy! Thank you so much for introducing her to Aydan and the gang! 🙂

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  12. I feel it’s important to first point out that I am well into my sixth decade of existence. In all of those decades I have not grown out of jumping from the floor into my bed before whatever it is that has lived under there since I was old enough to grasp the many wonderful fairytales spun by the Grimm brothers can grab me by the leg. This belief was further supported by every book I read growing up which were almost exclusively written by Stephen King. To be fair, I only do this when it’s dark in my bedroom.

    Although I’m fairly certain I’ve been able to hide my antics from my three adult children, I think they would agree with me the world would be a better place without cicadas, spiders and clowns.

    Since having children, although most of my body parts as a whole sleep soundly, my ears remain vigilant for threatening noises. Which of course I hear, and my husband does not. The most sinister of these noises is the sound of our bedroom door, obviously not hung high enough, slowly sliding open over the carpet. This hideous sound was often followed by the very loud whisper of a child saying, “Mom, I don’t feel good”, and almost immediately, by the horrifying sound of a small child vomiting, next to the bed, or into it depending on the projectile velocity. As mentioned, my children are all grown, and even when they visit, they rarely vomit on me while I sleep. I do however occasionally hear that sound. The panic that follows can usually be calmed by pulling the covers over my head.

    In addition to the slithering door and other random sounds, I often feel a thud on the bed and sometimes I feel someone sitting down on the mattress next to me. I used to think it may have been caused by my husband jerking or flipping in his sleep, until he started overnight traveling and I still experience both. That disturbance finally required further investigation. I mean, if it can move my bed, it can certainly pull the covers from over my head. Therefore, I did two things. First, I logged into the geological society’s website for notifications of local earthquakes. Secondly, I very sincerely asked whoever was in the room with me at night could they please stop bumping into and sitting on the bed. The earthquakes were usually a state away so not terribly the likely cause, but the request seems to have done the trick.

    Although this makes me seem otherwise, I am not really over excitable. I do read a lot though and perhaps have a bit of an over active imagination combined with several nightmarish encounters with sick children.

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    • Laura, I feel for you; your panic caused by sick child visits reminds me of my own. When our daughter was growing up she had some medical issues that meant she was often nauseated/vomiting. When she felt like that, she couldn’t call out for help, so I gave her a small bell to ring. To this day, when I hear a bell tinkling my heart gives a lurch! We can get conditioned to the oddest things 🙂

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    • If I thought the sound of my bedroom door opening had any chance of presaging incoming vomit, I’d never sleep again! I’ve always had huge respect for anyone who made it through parenthood with even a modicum of sanity left. I know I could never have managed it!

      Your bumping bed gives me a bit of a shiver, though. I’ve experienced that, too. It happens frequently when I’m visiting my step-mom, who lives about half a mile away from from a railway line — whenever the train goes by, the bed shakes. That doesn’t bother me, but it’s also happened to me a few times when there’s no apparent reason. *cue spooky music* So far nothing has grabbed me, so I’ll just keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best! 🙂

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    • I admit my imagination ran away with me for a few minutes there. (And I did have the fleeting thought that if it was actually a ninja, I wouldn’t be able to see him/her anyway.) In my defense, it was the middle of the night and I wasn’t quite awake. But I’m definitely going to be more consistent with my watering schedule in the future!

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  14. I’d be careful about having plants in the house. I don’t have them in the house because my cats like to eat them. But, I should warn you about Garden Gnomes. They are a real threat to life and limb and are waiting for the perfect opportunity to murder you in your bed.

    Having a plant in the corner gives them a perfect place to hide and the chance to attack you with their Gnome size axes in the small hours of the night.

    Just something to think about.
    Sleep well.

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  16. Diane, I have it on good authority that the plant is actually an alien in disguise from the planet Proxima Centauri b, located 4.2 light-years (1.3 parsecs) from Earth. Apparently some years ago, a catastrophic event occurred on their planet wiping out the entire female population.

    Several recent sightings in both Canada and the USA confirm this information. According to noted experts in the extraterrestrial field, the plant/alien is on a fact finding mission and is studying red headed women, (Only)
    The aliens are harmless and sworn to a life of non violence. Eventually they will gather enough information and return home to Proxima Centuri b and start cloning women. And, by the way, their previous population of females were all blondes. The male species on their planet decided that information based on their fact finding mission deduced that red headed females are very independent, intelligent and have the ability to multi-task. The other reason they plan on cloning Red Heads is they ran out of blonde jokes.

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    • Bahahaha!!! OMG, I was reading your account with bated breath and clenched sphincter in case there was any reference to probing. Whew, what a relief to know that Audrey is only studying me. 😉

      But if I find out that she’s hiding a collection of all the hairs I shed, I’m gonna be seriously worried…

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  17. Oh at night our minds go on quite the adventures. maybe it would be the best time to type out a best selling thriller. Attack of the killer plant or perhaps Why watering plants can be life threatening. Sweet dreams.

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