Tapping

There was no Breakfast that day in the Baggaraggs. No lunch and No Teatime either. Grace stayed in Bed with her eyes closed and drifted, with the annoying awareness that an Abba song intruded non stop in her ears. Her mind seemed to play an endless round of Super Trooper.There was a puddle of saliva that crusted onto the side of her mouth and dribbled over onto her pillow.
She did not care. At times she was hot, and then she was cold. The covers flapped back and forth to adjust to her temperature.
No one disturbed her and had they tried Murray would have issued a growl that would have sent them scurrying.
The Evening came. The light faded and the shadows in the corners of the room were melting into darkness. Grace realized she has spent the entire day in bed. There was the niggling sense of guilt over time wasted, friends not fed, chores ignored.She righted herself at the bedside and sat with her head drooping. Murray rested his head on her knee, and under her hand. They did not speak.
Grace unfolded her self into a stretch. Tentatively searching the spots at the limits of her joints where the pain would come. Trying to avoid the hot discomfort. Arthritis.
An awareness of an unfamiliar tapping sound intruded. Grace momentarily considered ignoring it, but somehow drew a line against her apathy to investigate the noise.
The back porch light was on, had been since the night before. Grace hiked her pajama bottoms up with a hand and held them at her stomach. like a sleep walker, stiff and uncertain, she walked towards the light, and what seemed to be the source of the tapping. The rest of the house was dark.