I was exhausted, dear reader. Bone-weary. Covered from head to toe in horrible brown filth. I was also victorious against insurmountable forces. But I couldn't rest, not if I wanted to get the jump on the monster. Fortunately, to my knowledge, nothing had changed about the music room door during my excursion into hell. It remained shut. The bungie cord was still wound tightly around the handle. Whatever the beast had become, I doubted it was dextrous enough to pry the barrier open, shut it tight, re-tie the the mechanism, and shove the comforter back beneath the seam. So I was safe for the time being.

Still, I knew that my status could change at any moment with a single smashing sound from the crypt. I forced myself to my feet, balanced against the wall, knees quaking, clutching my precious prize in my free hand. Then I backed into the living room, eyeing the door as I went. The crowbar wasn't the only item I needed. I also required an assortment of heavy things to hold it in place. My plan was to lodge the tool beneath the door and secure it with the metal claw, then weigh down the bar with as many boxes, tables, chairs, and frames as I could find. 

What fortune! My scattered collection of completely impractical items was a blessing in disguise. First, I settled on the easy chair, an obvious choice. It was the most pronounced furnishing in my living room, also surprisingly light, despite its girth.

I shot the door at the end of the hall another apprehensive glance, then I dashed to the corner where the chair stood. The footrest beetled outward, for I'd forgotten to retract it in in the rush, but just as well; it served as a perfect handhold. I grabbed the leather frame from either side, lifted with my legs, yanked backwards, and began to drag the whole accessory across the carpet. 

It creaked and protested as it slid, small pieces of things dropping out of its stomach and cascading over each other and lodging beneath its metal feet. But, despite an empty belly and tired limbs, I persisted. Moments later, I'd dragged it within five feet of the music room. I let the chair down quietly, so as not to disturb my houseguest, who was fast asleep, for all I knew; then I moved on to the next appliance.

The rest were quick work. I unearthed an oaken dresser from my bedroom, removed the television from its stand and dragged the stand through the hall, even obtained some leftover weights from the olympic bench in in the kitchen. My first dilemma was finding a place to store the furniture whilst I prepared my yanking mechanism. I settled on leaning them like dominos against the wall adjacent the door.

But inserting the crowbar beneath the seam--that was the most formidable of my obstacles. For I couldn't properly jam it through the crevice without opening the door. Another hurtle, dear reader. Another detour in the labyrinth of my mind. I took a deep breath, prayed that the creature was indeed snoozing in its confined nest. 

Then I unhooked the bungie cord from the door frame and bent and pressed the door open a crack and shoved the hookend through and closed it again in one swift motion. Nothing interrupted the procedure, thank god. No shifting or knocking or laughing (ugh!). I reattached the bungie hooks then spun and tugged the easy chair the few remaining feet and placed the backend of its metal frame atop the crowbar.

The other furnishings followed. I stacked the weights atop the easy chair cushion first, then I leaned the dresser against the chair and lifted it by the base so that it was sitting lengthwise across the arm rests. The television stand came last. I was too exhausted to maneuver it atop what had grown into a sizable stack, so I settled on reclining it against the headrest, grunting and heaving and muttering curses. 

Something was missing. I stepped back and surveyed the structure; then I thought of it, the final innovative element in my whatchamacallit. I circumnavigated the stack, detached the bungie cord, unwound it a few lengths and then stretched the hooks and secured them to the leg of the TV stand. A final precautionary measure. The beast would need both anthropoid intelligence and superhuman strength to breach my barrier.

I leaned against the wall, overcome with relief. The deed was done. I could finally relax. But cruel fate wasn't finished with me yet, dear reader. As I stood there, gazing at the ceiling, feeling my pulse surge through my eardrums, I experienced a trickle of nausea. Nothing severe. Not the sort of stomach pitfall to cause any real concern. 

Still, it dampened my sense of triumph and planted that first seed of worry which pricks a man before an intense bowel movement. I'm sure you know the impression to which I refer (assuming my narrative device possesses a stomach, intestines, and colon). It's that little flutter in your entrails which spreads throughout your limbs and proliferates into goosebumps. I wasn't nervous yet, per se, but my body was on high alert, anticipating the prospects of agony in the future.

Next came the dizzy spell. My legs became anemic. A circle of white fringed my vision. Beads of sweat suddenly budded along my forehead. And I was truly scared then, for I recognized the first warning signs. This was no harmless intestinal shift. I was about to be sick. Sick! Sick!

I rushed, stumbled, careened the few yards to the bathroom. The light blazed overhead, and everything was suffused with a blinding white glow. Or perhaps I was truly on the verge of fainting. The toilet bowl emerged from the iridescent nimbus of my vision. Just in time. I fell forward and wretched into it. I expelled all the hot acid which had been festering inside of me, and the toilet water moiled into a tumult. I think, for a moment, only two things existed. Me and that porcelain tunnel. Everything else had dissolved into a bleached haze. I hoped fervently that I wouldn't pass out, for my unconscious body only had one direction to fall--straight into the swamp! What a dismaying thought.

But I held on tenaciously. To the rim of the bowl. To consciousness. To sanity. Until finally the bout subsided. I knelt against the porcelain throne, trembling in shock, hypnotized the by the gyre of vomit coiling a few centimeters below. There went every ounce of liquid in my body, I thought. I would probably shrivel up like a husk now. But the horrid experience was over, thank goodness. 

My stomach began to settle, and after kneeling for another few minutes, I was able to stand again. I shuffled down the hallway, steadying myself against the wall, limped across the living room, and made for the pantry, where I kept my bottles of boiled water (Why had I boiled them, you ask? Because who knew what toxins had leaked into the tap!) Then I grabbed one and gulped the whole thing down in ten seconds flat, and the liquid filled up my stomach like a leather wineskin.

What a perfect demonstration of my mortality, I thought pensively to myself. It didn't matter what events I was caught up in; my body had chosen a detour, and I was powerless to refuse it. Did other protagonists suffer from the same crude animal functions? Was there ever a knight forced to quit his encounter with a dragon, for fear of shitting his pants? Despite my exhaustion, I chuckled to myself, for these were the delirious thoughts of a malnourished insomniac. 

I considered breaking open another can of pork n' beans, but the prospect of going through the entire process again felt insurmountable, and I was practically falling asleep on my feet; so I decided to just give in and find a comfortable space to hibernate. Unfortunately, the easy chair, my habitual bunk, was otherwise engaged. I was too weary to care. The floor would do for now. I shuffled to the empty patch where my easy chair had sat for eons, and I bent and curled up over the hardwood. Were there other softer spaces to camp out? Certainly. But I'd had it with mushy, decaying things.

Before I drifted off, I examined the barrier one last time. It stood at the end of the hall like a disheveled monument constructed by primitive troglodytes, illuminated a barbaric yellow by the bathroom lamp, a scarecrow to deter unwary passerby. It was enough, I hoped. Enough to ease my mind. Then I rode a gentle wave into oblivion, and that, dear reader, to my recollection, is the last good night's sleep I ever had.