text: The time turned quickly from one to two. Twisting and turning on his double-sized, double-topped mattress, Jason couldn’t sleep. He reached eagerly for his glass of water and upon connection, something strange happened. At 1am, he couldn’t quite believe that anyone would have the audacity to ring the doorbell. Swiftly, he manoeuvred himself out from under the warm protection of his covers, and into the cold darkness of his hallway. He edged gently towards the door, careful not to give away his presence to a potential intruder. Reaching reluctantly with his right arm, he pried open the peephole. Standing roughly three inches from the door, was a tall, slim man. He was well dressed in a dark blue suit with large overcoat, clutching a New World Translation Bible to his chest. ‘Hello?’ Jason questioned, slowly backing away from the door. There was no reply. ‘Who’s there?’ he questioned again. ‘It’s me.’ The man replied in a delicate, almost musical voice. ‘I err, think you’ve got the wrong house.’ Jason wasn’t sure why, but he was shaking. ‘I don’t often get the wrong house Jason.’ The man moved closer to the door and placed his eye firmly against the peephole. Startled, Jason quickly backed away from the door, unplugged the lamp to his left, and armed himself with it. With an odd surge of courage, he revved up his vocal box and attempted to sound as intimidating as possible, ‘I’m awfully sorry, but you have definitely got the wrong house. I doubt you have anything useful to say at this time in the morning, and I certainly have no desire to speak to you. Good night.’ Jason checked all four locks on the door, and limply moved like a scared rabbit back to his bed. He sat there, upright for the next half an hour, hoping and praying that the man had gone. \* \* \* Time turned again, this time quicker - Jason still couldn’t sleep. He looked at his digital alarm clock, except this time, it was no longer casting its ethereal green glow across the room. The doorbell rang again. Jason spasmodically sat upright in bed. A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead. ‘Right’ he remarked definitively to himself. ‘This buffoon is asking for it.’ He whipped out his mobile phone and dialled 999. ‘Hello, you’ve reached the emergency services how can I help?’ ‘Hi, sorry to disturb you at such an hour, but there appears to be a man outside my apartment, and he won’t go away.’ He tried to mask the quivering impudence of his voice, but it was no use. The doorbell rang again. ‘And what is the address sir?’ The distant voice at the end of the phone was comforting, to a degree. ‘Number 1, The Terrace, New Street, Bradford.’ The words leaked out of him like helium from a balloon. ‘Hello? Did you get that? Is anyone there?’ He clutched the phone tightly to his ear; the line was dead. ‘Hello?’ He uttered once more. Not sure how to rectify the situation, he got out of bed once more, and feebly dragged his chest of drawers in front of his door. There was only one thing for it, to sit and wait, and hope that the man had gone away. \* \* \* His neck was stiff. He’d been sat upright against the drawers pushing all his force on it for what felt like hours; in reality, he’d been sat cooped up in his room for only twenty minutes. A knock at the door. ‘It’s the police.’ Jason’s eyes lit up. ‘Finally!’ He scrambled to his feet, moved his barricade and ran to the door; precisely unlocking each of the four locks. Stood to greet him were two policemen, one short and fat, the other tall and slender, ‘We received a call from this property about a lurker.’ Said the fat one questioningly. Jason blurted his reply at breakneck speed, ‘Er, yes that’s right, there was a man, he was well dressed in a dark blue suit with large overcoat, clutching a New World Translation Bible to his chest.’ ‘We’ll see what we can do.’ The fat man’s nonchalance ground Jason’s gears. ‘We’ll do a quick perimeter of the building, check everything’s normal.’ The tall policeman didn’t say anything. He stood there staring at Jason, and then, on command, sauntered off after the fat one. ‘What a strange pair.’ Jason remarked to himself as he slammed the door closed and did up two of the chain locks. He sat there by the door, eagerly awaiting their return. \* \* \* Ten minutes went by and there was no sign of the policemen. Jason rose from his squat to check the peephole, there was nothing but the cold white glow of the street lamps - he was shaking again. It didn’t seem conventional to him that two policemen could get lost when carrying out such a simple task, there was only one explanation. Jason placed his eye against the peephole to have another look. Startled, he fell away from the door, there was another eye looking back. ‘Hello? We finished the perimeter; can you open the door?’ Reluctantly, Jason opened the door, and was again greeted by the two officers. ‘Christ, what took you so long?’ He berated. ‘Sorry about that, my colleague Simon here got distracted by a very friendly squirrel.’ Perking up at this statement, the tall officer countered. ‘That’s not true, it was you who was taking fancy to that squirrel.’ The two turned two each other, covered their mouths and began angrily whispering. Jason, not in the mood for such a ridiculous argument, cut them off, ‘Er, excuse me, sorry to interrupt, but, are there not more important things to discuss?’ The fat man turned his attention back to Jason, his little red face blushing at the embarrassment of their domestic spat. ‘Well, we finished the perimeter, didn’t find anything!’ Jason released a sigh of relief. ‘We are going to have to ask you a few more questions though, just in case anyone else reports anything. Would you mind hopping in the car?’ Jason got into the backseat of the car and began answering the obviously routine questions. His mind drifted, and by the time it was done he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d said. It was 3am now and he was tired. Walking back to the house, he waved goodbye to the officers and relished the thought of a nice cosy bed. He then remembered that in his flustered state he’d forgotten to bring a key out with him. He tried the lock, and thankfully, it was open. Jason deftly applied all four of the chain locks and flopped into bed, without even bothering to take of his dressing gown; slowly, he began to drift off to sleep. Just as he was almost there, he heard a movement. Snapping into to action he flung himself upright in bed and turned on the lamp. There, standing in the middle of the room was a well-dressed man in a dark blue suit, with a large overcoat and clutching a New World Translation Bible to his chest. ‘Hello Jason’ he muttered wryly, as he stepped towards the bed.