The Glub-Glub by Dennis Stein

The ‘Glub-Glub’ was something that filled my mind with horror tonight. It had been swallowing at various intervals throughout my sleepless hours, taking in three gulps of liquid periodically as I tried in vain to shut its guttural thirst out of my waking thoughts.

  But as the hours passed, it would yank me back again and again from the edge of slumber, returning me into the darkness of the room. I could sense it sitting there somewhere in the black, its single glowing eye watching as it frothed at me. I could smell the moisture of its breath. I could hear it breathing.

  It was silent here; the open window not bringing any distraction via outside sounds. Winter was drawing its cold cloak around the land, and it was still and quiet. I tried again to drift away into sleep, but the horror nearby gulped again three times, like some primordial amphibian crouched awaiting a meal.

  Its single glowing eye stared at me, unblinking as I tried to roll over away from it, tried not to think about it. The hours in the night before dawn had begun to play tricks on my mind, begun to twist rational thoughts into a serrated nightmare, cutting through my fatigue. Glancing at the clock’s digital display offered no solace, reminding me that I would soon have to rise anyway. The creature in the room would not allow me to rest, it seemed.

  Glub, glub, glub. It drank in liquid again. I tried to focus on my own breathing, to ignore the monster huddled in the gloom watching me with its cyclops eye.

  For a time, my thoughts drifted, rolling through different scenarios which seemed at once both real and bizarre. But the creature eventually glubbed again, and I wondered if I had actually slept, and if so for how long. Another look at the clock told me that I had only dozed for a while.

  I thought about work. The nightmare thoughts about being suddenly without the income which made everything in my life seem to function properly. I think I dreamed briefly about being homeless, without the means to provide for the family. Glub-glub-glub. If I were homeless, at least this creature wouldn’t bother me, wouldn’t keep me from sleeping, wouldn’t be watching me in the dark.

  The alarm sounded, as I knew it would be at any moment, its shrill electronic sound shattering the quiet of the room. Glub. The creature was laughing at me now. It had won.

  I sat up, my wife returning from the bathroom, signalling that just like yesterday, the new day was here, arriving with all its problems and issues that had not been settled in the previous versions of my waking reality.

  The eye of the creature had suddenly turned a different colour, as though the creature was suddenly angry with me, as it sat motionless and sulking in the gloom.

  “The humidifier is empty. Can you re-fill it when you get the chance?” my wife said.

  I stared at it, and it stared back at me. Perhaps I might win tonight, when the day was over. I would keep this strange beast from robbing me of rest. Yes, perhaps I would starve it of its lifeblood.

  “Yeah,” I replied groggily.