A bang in the night

Last night I was woken from an interesting dream. In my dream there were three bangs. The bangs coming from a man slamming a bar surface while choking on a burger. When I awoke I realized that the bang seemed out of place in the dream and also out of place in my home. It sounded like someone banging on the window. I was tired and I really wanted to go back to sleep. I could have, easily.

Grace has often woken me up after hearing an explosion that could have been a gun shot. I would say "It's a gun shot go back to sleep!" The reason I say this is whether or not it is a gunshot or some other sort of explosion (in the woods yesterday I saw spent fireworks. Could be that) there's nothing I can really do about it. If someone is crying for help outside my door I can do something, but some sort of unclear vague noise. I can't do anything.

Another two nights ago I heard a group of teenagers frolicking in the street with frequent "n"-word this and "n" word that. They were black.

In my childhood I would fall asleep to such sounds, even of fighting, knowing that concrete and brick  (an my open window four stories up) separated us.

But suddenly I realized that I was not a child and these noises did not belong. I looked out to see the group playing frisbee in the street headed back towards the projects, ambling along almost getting run over by every single car that past. Even someone in their group yelled at those two to get out of the street.

They were not a threat but they were annoying and stupid. Seriously those two almost died like 5 times over frisbee. Grace thinks they were high. But I'm not so sure. And thinking back, I did stupid stuff like that too when I was in a group of youth.


Last night it sounded like this bang was in my house. So the first thing I did was lay awake and listening further. And then tired as I was I did a little routine check. I checked where all my children and Grace were. I stalked through the house and looked briefly at the sides of the house to see if anyone was banging on car windows or anything like that.

The weird thing was it was my rational mind that made me do this. I really just wanted to fall back asleep. But the bang was probably just in my dream after all. Or whatever it was, had nothing to do with me. But it was not in my mind's catalogue of "normal" sounds. It's just strange. "Explosion." Go back to sleep. "Much quieter banging noise." Inspect the entire house.