It’s quiet. Too quiet. Your senses are tingling. There is no sight, sound or smell. But somehow you know. You are being hunted.
I imagine lions have a similar problem. You have lots of fun play-fighting with your little cubs. Then they grow, and they have a surge of testosterone and adrenaline and suddenly they’re chewing your leg off. You decide to eat them after all, but it’s too late. They’re too fast, too strong and their teeth are too sharp.
I’m no lion. But I’m big, and not weak. I can hold off a five-year-old boy.
The merest hint of a giggle, a flash of colour in the corner of my eye, and he’s upon me, climbing my body like a ninja up a drain pipe.
With an arm sweep I easily divert his attack. I think he actually believes he can take me down. Kind of impressive in a way.
I sigh patronisingly. Then I hear it, my one-year-old’s shriek of joy as he barrels towards me like a turbo-charged wind-up penguin.
He clamps his arms around my legs and I start to totter like a Star Wars imperial walker.
Then my five-year-old is scrabbling up my back and hanging from my neck. I start to choke, coughing and spluttering.
My four-year-old daughter’s battle scream is genuinely terrifying.
She charges in and punches me in the inner thigh, narrowly missing my testicles. I double over, over balance, and I’m going down.
Before I can speak they are on me, showering me in crushing bum-sits and knee drops, squeezing the air out of me and threatening to shatter my ageing rib cage.
“This is it,” I think. “I sort of knew they would kill me in the end.”
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