"Knock knock"

"Who's there?"

Rapidly approaching machine gun fire was the reply. 

I was in my own backyard, but somehow my backyard had been transformed into a war scene in Vietnam. I was pretty far behind enemy lines, waiting for reinforcements, but the likelihood of their arrival was waning. Our side was retreating, and the remnant of my small unit was facing the grim reality that the only troops we were likely to encounter would be the Viet Cong.

"Shhh!" I placed my finger to my lips, silently gesturing to the couple of men left in my squad as they rounded the corner of a wooden fence. We had become separated, and I had to make sure they didn't fire on me out of surprise.

"It looks like this is about it for us," one of them said dejectedly. "I don't see any way out of this."

He was right. The enemy had us surrounded, and there was no way out. Even to retreat, we would have to charge our way through lines of advancing troops. 

I could see the black uniforms, little pinspecks at first, now turning into a life-sized army before my eyes. They were spread out in a loosely staggered formation, a deadly, efficient search party, roaming through the woods, their silent approach broken only by the occasional machine gun round when they would come across one our soldiers crouched behind a rock or tree trying to evade capture. 

TOK--TOK TOK. One by one, we were being executed. 

They were closer now. I could see their faces and hear their taunts as they tried to draw out what was left of my unit from their desperate hiding places. 

I decided to make a run for it. I made a break for my neighbor's property to the east, hoping to put some distance between me and my pursuers. I ran toward the fence in a blind panic.

"Son quiox blan!" they cried, meaning something to the effect of "don't let that one get away!"

I made a flying leap at the fence, but I got hung up on at the top of it. It didn't matter. On the other side of the fence there were more of them waiting with guns aimed at me. I awaited the inevitable.

Of course, it never came. 

I wondered if this was what death was like, always looming, but at the moment of arrival--nothing. I woke up to the sound of a woodpecker pecking away at the molding on the side of my house. 

TOK--TOK TOK.