She shook a little in her sleep. He would be still awake and notice a brief tremor come over her body every once in a while. He wondered what it could mean and hoped that she was at peace. He held her tighter, kissed her gently, but she still shook several times a night.
He tried to see if there was a warning before the shakes came. But there was nothing. One second she`d be laying quietly lost in some dream - the next she'd suddenly tense up and hit him slightly with her head, then pull away far as if upset but still fully asleep.
He became convinced that a demon has entered her. Maybe not a big one, but some homeless spirit has surely found a home in her head. To fight it he washed the sheets she was sleeping on with holy water and hid a large wooden cross under the bed.
This did not help at all and her shakes continued. He even had an inexplicable black eye when he got up in the morning. It was her turn then to wonder what happened. He just brushed it off with some nonsense while trying to smoothly shove a protruding end of the cross back under the bed.
His only remaining option now was to turn to television, and he watched a disturbing news report on a series of earthquakes in a distant part of the world that in his mind seemed to coincide with the days she had her shakes. Then another report came on about some buildings collapsing in his city for no good reason - all at the time she was sleeping and shaking! Now he got really nervous and turned off the television.
This is when she got home from work and saw his scared face.
"Baby, you don't look so good today!" she commented. Then got enough courage to say the more difficult - "You know, I've been meaning to tell you - you do this weird shaking thing in your sleep. Some sudden jerky motions, you know. Is everything ok with you?"
Not everything was ok with him, but mostly it was better. The next step was becoming clearer in his mind.
"Baby, we need to move... Living next to the airport is just too dangerous in this day and age..."
But he didn't really think so. He knew what they had beating within them - the pulse of the world...
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