“Quiet,” he whispers again.

A breath, a quiet touch of silence seen through unfiltered eyes, and she closes her eyes.

“Please,” she barely gasps, “not yet. Not now.”

The door stays closed.

It’s as she’s walking home, passing the posters screaming vapid slogans and mindless rhetoric-”Resistance is necessary,” “Failure is a result of surrender,” and the like, that she answers the phone.

Now, a phone booth is rare. They once dotted every street corner and every side-streets’ end, but the arrival of commonplace cell-phones completely eliminated the phone booth as anything other than a historical curiosity.

But this phone booth is unusual in its stark normalness. One would expect that the booth would be fancy, neon-lighted, for example, and not a basic design, complete with a swinging door reminiscent of buses, although buses are rare now, too.

But the shrill sound slicing through the night draws her attention, as of course any ringing phone does, and she walks over to the booth with hesitation evident in her slower steps and almost clumsy walk. One does not know what the answering phone call brings, whether the voice of a lover or enemy.

But as the woman picks up the phone, the voice whispers, “They’re here.”

And she’s dropped the phone and running, leaving the phone swinging back and forth between phone booth and street, before she hears the voice finish.

“It’s too late.”

Silence greets the woman’s arrival at home; blank stares and panicked expressions follow her warnings.

“Hurry,” she’s saying, but the family’s already boarding up the windows and locking the doors, placing cinderblocks in front of the cellar, asking, “how long,” dreading the answer, and loading the pistols and shotguns with practiced ease.

“Anytime,” she’s saying over and over, as she quickly places people in various positions, “to the front!” “back!” and taking her place at the door.

The radio’s playing a love song, ironic. The woman’s standing at the door and bracing herself against it, preparing for whatever follows.

“Won’t be too long now,” says the man in the corner, hunched with his shotgun- safety off.

“Quiet,” she’s saying, and the man in the corner bows his head.

The love song ends, and she’s listening as a man in the corner begins to shut off the static, but a man’s voice, smooth, honeyed vocal chords, breaks through the hissing and shouts, “This is it...this...it...now....now....”

The man by the radio turns it off.

A child sitting by the man with the shotgun starts crying, and another woman near the pair holds him close. He’s asking why, what does this have to do with me? and the woman’s crying, her tears soaking into the child’s sandy brown hair, and blending with his own tears.

Light had bled through the sealed shutters, run-off from the street lights, but now the lamps’ light dims, until finally fading forever.

The darkness is amplified by the whites of the woman’s eyes, her body’s held steady against the door, but nothing but the wind has beat against it. Now.

“This is it,” whispers the man, repeating the words of the d.j. “Now...”

The woman’s pushing against the door, bracing herself.One last thought, one last moment, one last opportunity for everything in existence to be balanced in the final weighing of just and unjust, one chance to look at the sun or the moon or the stars or the mahogany door she’s pushing against with all her heart.

Shapes began appearing against the backdrop of the closed shutters, passing figures, dark and large, they seem to absorb light.

She’s feeling the tension in her shoulders build until she’s unable to think, panic, respond, breathe...this is now.

A slam against the door, and she’s watching it open slightly, before she’s pushed it

closed again.

Another slam, a cry from the child.

Slam.

Breathe.

She’s crying now, her tongue mixing the salty taste to blend with the metallic taste of blood.

She gasps,

“Quiet,” he whispers.

Slam!

Her shoulder’s aching, the tendons ripping from the strain, her eyes wide open, her pulse racing

“Please,” she’s saying.

 “Quiet,” he whispers again.

A breath, a quiet touch of silence seen through unfiltered eyes, and she closes her eyes.

“Please,” she barely gasps, “not yet. Not now.”

The figures draw together, one more push,

she braces herself

SLAM!!

Shoulder slips, her legs fail, and the door opens a crack revealing a dark figure, and for one second, she sees something- herself?-a monster!- and sobs as she pushes with all in her...

and

the door stays closed.