As the lady lays idle on her bed; sugarplums transversely dance through her head. The only way to describe the lady’s expression is serene, Her eyes heavily shut. The lady’s hand is curled under her chin, Long chocolate hair circles around her oval face and down her neck slumber being the only time her locks are unbound. These short moments of stillness are the only peace the lady gets. Bang! Her master calls for her. Bang! Hauntingly blue eyes snap open, her dream world, stolen away as the thunderous noise echoes around her room. Bang! She hurries pulling down her white dress. Bang! She leans over her vanity, tying her hair up quickly. Bang! The lady jumps up and runs to the kitchen.
    Her day always begins this way. It demands her and cannot live without feeding off the lady’s gifts. Bang! Bang! Bang! Faster and more intense, It’s becoming she begins to get frantic running from the pantry to the boiling pot throwing ingredients together. The smell is that of rotten eggs and maneuver, she is used to the strange concoction now though still remembers barely getting through the process her first time. Gagging on the stench of her master’s requirements. Nothing satisfying would come of such an aroma.
    Bang! Bang! Frenzied the lady pours the finished soup into a bowl with gold embellishments. So big, she could barely hold it, So as she sets the dish down on the cart it spills over her. She lets out a yelp. The boiling hot stew scorches her dress into her skin. Her cries of pain are met with more hurried forceful banging It seemed irate by her moans, she whimpers ripping the dress off her skin exposing the burnt flesh. Then continues out the kitchen, pushing the cart. The lady comes to a door that could be mistaken for a closet by this time the banging is a constant rhythm In Sync with a throbbing in her head as she opens the door. A rush of sound escapes, the banging is more violent and there is a distinct rumbling of its breath. Inside reveals a set of spiral stairs. She reaches down and picks up the dish and begins climbing. As she reaches the top she is met with another door.
    The lady need do nothing the door finally opens itself and a cloud of foul-smelling smog rolls out into the stairwell devouring her making her choke. The bowl is pulled deep inside the room, a room unknown to her. As the door slams in her face the banging ceases all that can be heard is her master’s breathing.
    She’s weakened as if she had been running for days. She begins sluggishly walking back down the stairs to her couch and tries laying down to catch some sleep but she lets out an agonizing shriek her shoulder is still badly singed. She gets up to tend to her wound, her feet barely leaving the ground. She took a quick inhale of breath as she pours the cleaning aid on her shoulder the pain was so intense she could barely see. With her newly bandaged back, she makes her way back to the couch and lays gently on her stomach. She lays her head in her arms and a shy smile creeps onto her face for the tranquility sleep will bring her. She yearns deeply for that pause.
    Rapidly she slips into a deep sleep, where she dreams of an artist’s easel and paints. She was painting a landscape of some distant land, only found in the mind of an artist. Color so vibrant if it were real you’d be blinded. Slight music floated around the room, but nothing to break her reverie. As she began a new stroke a sound startled her. She glances around the room but sees nothing. so she continues on. But as soon as she places the brush to the canvas. The thump came again, harder this time. She jerked at the noise tainting her masterpiece. Whipping her head around, she still found no cause for the noise, but being in her dream state shrugs it off, and goes back to fix her painting. As she begins this time the painting starts moving, with each thump it comes closer to falling. The lady stares horrified not knowing what to do. This was no dream but a nightmare.
    As she snaps awake ceiling dust comes down as each bang shakes the room. She’s never let it get this out of control before, never would have gone this long without giving the offering. She was terrified of what might happen. She hardly can hold her ground, as she darts to the kitchen! She clings to the walls trying to reach the pot. The cauldron, swinging wildly, she tries to light the fire; But every match blows out from the bangs ringing throughout the house. Finally, she gets a small fire started, when she drops a match and it catches some debris. She grabs a log to make it bigger, laying it under the cauldron. The banging has increased so much that the pictures and knickknacks begin to fall, smashing all around her. This makes her frantic, scared to be trapped under bits and pieces of this house.
    Her panic rose quickly to terror when she opened the pantry and found the offering ingredients unsalvageable knocked over from it’s careless, temper tantrum, how would she ever make it now. The room begins to spin. She never let it down before, and had no clue as to what would happen. Not knowing terrified her. She gulps in air, noticing she had forgotten to breathe. Grabbing the list and her coat. She prayed, she would have enough time. Her cloak flies out behind her as she runs from the house, glancing back she notices the house’s disrepair overgrown yard and chipped paint shingles falling with each thump. She wonders if the house would still be standing when she returns.
    The lady could still feel the thumping with every beat in her heart no matter how far she got from the house. Her list has a dozen items, she runs as fast as her tiny feet can carry her. Reaching her first stop her body begins to feel Tingly like tiny feet running on her skin causing her to itch uncontrollably. Scratching it seems to make her worse, leaving red whelps. After the third stop, she begins to break into a cold sweat. She could feel It’s restlessness banging in her chest. After half of the list, the stress over took her, she falls to her knees and begins vomiting, her  throat burning, her body beginning to fight against what it wanted to do. She begins trembling with every bang, but forces her self up to continue her journey to finish the list.
    But her mind flickers to a thought, what would happen if she never goes back?  Her body was shivering badly from its pull on her, she might just die if it doesn’t get fed. But would dying be such a bad alternative? This circles in her mind, and she notices she is no longer moving toward her destination. She comes to a stop at a window where her eye catches a painter with blonde hair, his face was soft with a masculine shape. She stares at his face twisted in thought. Her gaze travels down his thick arm to his hand moving with ease across the canvas. She is mesmerized with each brush stroke.  She no longer feels the pain from It but it seems to be replaced with a twinge of longing and desire for paper and paints.  She knew that in front of a canvas is where she belonged in the days before she spent being a slave for It. It was like the invisible cord connecting her to It had been snipped when she saw the man in the window.     She drops her bags and begins running toward the house, she needed to go back.  When she crosses into the yard, the house is barely standing.  She opens the door and it falls inward, but this did not distress her.  She finds them under her couch and sets up the easel and begins to work on the masterpiece from her dream. The room is falling in, pieces of tile and wood dropping all around her. Magically missing her. Banging all around, loud enough to be heard around the world but the lady is left undisturbed as if she suddenly becomes deaf. Totally in peace she never felt more alive than in this moment with her paints. This was paradise. 
    The shaking and thumping finally grew, grew so great something finally has to give. So with a great crash the ceiling comes in on her finally pulling the lady from her dream world, she dodges the collapsing ceiling , barely misses being crushed. As the dust settles it grew eerily quiet.  The lady stands and walks to a brown-black lump in the middle of all the debris. She leans down to the child size thing on the floor. And immediately recognizes its face from a childhood trip to the zoo, a chimpanzee, her master.  She stares into it’s cold dead eyes and can’t believe all the time she had wasted slaving over it.  When all it took was remembering her true love and passion in life to get that monkey off her back.