Wake Up!

I awoke to Bernard's cold snout drawing a line on my palm, not an unusual thing, but generally he followed the sniff with a lick, which was warm. And usually my palm was open. In fact, how did he do that? Or had I closed fingers over the palm after his morning wake-up call?

I groaned as I tried to make my mind function, and free my legs from the sheets. Another restless night. I was tangled like twine.

And irritated now.

I reached out to yank the sheet free and hit myself in the head. Not with my hand; I'm not that stupid even in the early morning hours. That's when it ocurred to me that the cold was not Bernard's nose. In fact, Bernard was nowhere to be seen.

Instantly I was fully awake, and the sheets were relegated to insignificance. I sat up straight and patted the mattress, my eyesight hindered by the smokey gray of pre-dawn and the fact that I hadn't put on glasses yet. What hit me? Why?

My fingers closed around a length of metal, about the thickness of a pencil. I followed the length of it until it flattened and formed three loops, then back down the shaft until I felt the protrusions that identified it as a key. An old, old key. I lifted it to within inches of my nose where I could see it. Yes, a key. It conjured up imagines of castles and dungeons, attics and trunks, secret gardens and gates.

Where did it come from? Why did I wake up with it clutched in my hand? And where was stupid Bernard who was supposed to be such a live-wire watch dog?

That's when I started listening for voices.

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From a prompt on Writer's Digest website for 11/7/2004:

Imagine you wake up one morning with a key clasped tightly in your hand. How did this key come to be in your possession? More important, what does it unlock?