Deidre calls again later in the evening. I can almost hear a muffled playback of my mom’s voice gradually guilting her into an apology. It echoes in the very sound of her “hello.” Under different circumstances, I could feel sorry for my sister. At least up to the point where she started talking.
Mom’s best efforts notwithstanding, the ensuing half assed attempt at conciliation is awkward to the point of physical pain. Probably for both of us.
After a handful of unpleasant pleasantries, Deidre sends her inner orator off on leave and clumsily squeezes out something along the lines of “we both know that you’re in the wrong, but I might have slightly overreacted, so I’m willing to be the bigger person. There, it wasn’t so bad. You too should try admitting your own shortcomings once in a while.” No such admission has been made on her part.
I could howl with frustration at the ease with which she can practically mop the floor with another human being’s dignity, and then hope to solve it with a simple “sorry, not sorry.” Yet, having neither the time nor the energy to lock horns with the alpha hell-bitch, I give in to my innate cowardice and swallow my pride along with her lack of an apology. Both are sure to give me indigestion later on. Nothing a couple of beers can’t solve, though.
Pointedly ignoring the operator’s reproachful glower, I finally get up to put the empty mug in the sink. On my way to the kitchen I have to remind myself I’m too heavily medicated to do any serious drinking before the sun is properly down.
It has made quite a progress while I was busy being catatonic, though. The light crawling in through the living room window is getting dim. Something about it makes me feel uneasy, and I walk over to draw the curtains.
Wednesday Addams’ slow little sister is at her window again. I don’t know if she spotted me. If she has, there is no shimmer of recognition in her carrion-beetle eyes.
I pull the curtains meticulously closed, making sure to ignore the slight shaking in my hands. Then I step away from the window and widen the distance between us as fast as I can move without showing signs of panicky weakness.
As the only person on earth willing to believe that I may not be losing it, I’ll be damned if I give myself the slightest excuse for further doubts on the matter.
To draw my attention away from such misgivings I even grant myself a special permission to take one beer from the fridge. Not one of the local piss cans I usually settle for, either. I have a couple of Maredsous Tripels stashed away for special occasions, hidden behind a wall of biohazardous tupperware containers from days of yore. To avoid temptation.
If doubting one’s sanity is not an occasion worthy of 10% ABV, I don’t know what is.
I return to my favorite armchair, give ‘Doodle a mild push to move her over and curl up next to her with my feet folded beneath me. She grumbles resentfully for a few seconds, but shortly acquiesces. Eventually she is quite content to bury her muzzle in my pajamas while I savor the first sip.
I readily succumb to the bliss of familiar drowsiness- a drowsiness lovingly brewed and bottled by Benedictine monks. I feel closer to God with every mouthful of rich, malty fruitiness. And then there’s the tiny happy punch of nutmeg and cloves, and next thing I know it’s Christmas in my brain.
Over the years I’ve come to think of Belgian monks as some sort of amiable house-elves. Creatures of myth leading simple, secretive lives whose sole purpose is concocting liquid joy.
I descend into cottony softness amidst foggy comical faces with pointed ears and dark twinkling eyes. The armchair’s covers have been washed earlier this week, and my cushioned cocoon smells of lilac and baby soap.
The sounds of London After Midnight drift in effortlessly through the thin living room wall. Turns out the new neighbor is not all that bad after all. I’m just glad he didn’t go with ‘Selected Scenes From the End of the World.’ I doubt our other neighbors would appreciate the sound of Hitler’s voice booming through the building.
I vaguely remember having a rather interesting dream about Sean Brennan. I wake up to find ‘Doodle smearing kitty-drool all over my face. I knew Sean Brenner shouldn’t taste like tuna.
Despite the nasty taste in my mouth- stale beer and tuna kisses is not a flavor Ben & Jerry’s will be coming up with anytime soon- the short nap has done me some good. I wake up energized to the point of near bounciness, my watch’s insistent allegations regarding the unreasonable hour notwithstanding.
I take advantage of the uncharacteristic wakefulness to finally get some work done. It’s about time I do. Nobody gives out paychecks for apologies and excuses.
Ever since grade school, I’ve suffered from some mild form of undiagnosed attention deficit disorder. It has gotten worse over the years, with the past couple of days reaching an all-time low. As a result, I’ve managed to accumulate enough overdue assignments to fill the Augean Stables. I’m talking wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling.
Before long I find myself, at 2:00 a.m., more wide awake than I’ve been for months, typing away at my laptop like my cats’ life depends on it. Which it does, to an extent. I can’t feed them ear scratches and belly rubs.
My favorite working position is sprawled out on the living room carpet with a cushion under my chest and a steady supply of simple carbs within reach. To wit, a bag of gummy bears and a can of diet soda.
I keep the TV on for both company and white noise. Presently ‘Doodle and Hamster are watching some documentary about fruit bats. ‘Doodle is wise enough to know better, but Hamster is absolutely adamant on catching one of the darned flying critters. He bounces psychotically from the floor to the couch to the coffee table frantically wagging his paws in midair. Every time he lands too close to Snickerdoodle, he gets a little kick and an occasional derogatory hiss.
Overall, we’re all having quite a good time. I wonder if that’s what it was like for my mom, back when we were kids.
As far back as I can recall, it has always been just the three of us. And it was all we needed, really.
My dad has pulled a Houdini sometime around my second birthday. Most of my knowledge about him stems from parallelisms drawn between us whenever my acting up exacerbated to the point of full on assholery. This and gruesome cautionary tales as to where my temperament will land me one of these days. I also know his first name. Larry- a proper name for a douche. I don’t care to know more.
Deidre and I are only half sisters. Six years my senior, she was a toddler when mom met my father.
If in my father’s case we have a first name and a handful of generally dickish personality traits to go on, Deidre’s paternal ancestry remains a complete mystery to this day. For all I know, her conception was as immaculate as her school record. Mom has never mentioned Larry’s predecessor. Probably never will.
She has, however, always insisted we were both products of true love, planned or otherwise. I have no reason to either question her honesty or bug her about the guy’s identity. I only hope the bastard didn’t hurt her too badly.
I have once voiced a concern that there may have been some sort of abuse involved. It was over a decade ago, so I can hardly pinpoint such details as context or the exact wording I used. I hope I’ve phrased the question more delicately than my vague recollection suggests.
At any rate, mom told me not to be ridiculous. There was no pain in her voice. No anger, or regret, or anything that could be associated with denial. In fact, there wasn’t much of anything at all. It was neutral to the point of eeriness.
Knowing Deidre, she probably spends half their conversations fishing for information. I neither know nor care whether she’s managed to pry anything out so far.
Normally, I would’ve put all my money on my sister’s relentlessness. In this case, however, I’m willing to bet on the underdog. Though not particularly strong willed, when it comes to avoiding certain topics my mother could make most CIA interrogators waterboard themselves with frustration.
Generally pliant to the point of subservience, ask her about her private life and you’ll see exactly where Dee and I get our mulish obstinacy.
Deidre, I remind myself. Not Dee.
No one has dared call her Dee since her early teens. Looks like my little trip down memory lane stirred up more sleeping demons than I bargained for.
I can’t say I’ve had a particularly happy childhood. But shit, a part of me dies every time I think of those days- that constant clash between moments of rapturous joy and hours of dismal melancholy. The way only a child can feel both- vivid, shimmering, uncompromising. The worst of times and the best of times, you bet, Charlie old man. Times utterly irretrievable.
The shabbily well-loved realm of sheltered monotony that once was my own is long gone, without so much as a headstone left for me to visit. Sometimes, the mere finality of it all weighs down on me with enough force to sink me in reality’s mucky terrain to my very hips.
I even miss being occasionally smacked by Deidre. It was so much better than her current lukewarm politeness with its jumbo-size side of passive aggression.
There is something healthy and natural about a good spontaneous shitfit, even if it occasionally escalates into an episode of moderate physical violence. These days I’d gladly take a hearty sisterly thrashing in exchange for a mere chance to revisit that long lost home.
Maybe it’s just nostalgia playing tricks on me, but I think I could even sense an iota of regret in her back then. Nowadays, the very thought makes me laugh myself to tears.
Regrets aside, though, even as a child Deidre seemed to take some sort of deviant pleasure in causing me pain. Physical pain was only a small part of it. Her true passion was emotional button-pressing. Making me cry was her version of pulling a fly’s wings off. She probably didn’t want to enjoy it, and certainly didn’t want me to know that she does, but I knew all the same. In her own quiet, pseudo-conventional, highly-functioning manner, my sister has always been at the very least as deranged as I am. She’s simply smart and adaptable enough to keep most of her batshittery deep in the closet.
Hamster eventually despairs of ever catching one of the sneaky beasties teasing him from the screen. The bats have been replaced by a bunch of reality show hillbillies. And who wants to catch one of these, anyway? He comes over to attack my mouse instead. By the third time I push him away, my short spell of productivity is over.
“You’re probably right, fluffball. I’m getting too old for all-nighters.”
I turn off the TV just as one of the hillbillies tells the camera about that time he was abducted by aliens. I’m bitterly amused at no longer being able to tell with any certainty that he wasn’t. Not after all the weird shit I went through. If they come for me one day, led by Elvis and Rasputin, I’ll just shrug and go grab something to read on my way to their planet. And maybe some snacks, in case in-flight service sucks.
Snacks. That sounds just about right. As right as Freddie Mercury’s a capella performance of “Under Pressure.” My stomach votes yay- loud and clear.
That’s one thing I don’t like about staying awake all night. You get hungry. And I’m not talking “could use a sandwich” hungry. I’m talking 1840s’ Ireland meets World War II Leningrad. I’m talking your cat looks like roast turkey and your mom looks like pork tenderloin.
The very thought of pork tenderloin gives me hunger nausea.
As long as my mind was occupied with work and reminiscing, my stomach’s signals went straight to voicemail. Now they come through all at once, flooding my throat with hot saliva.
I jump to my feet too fast for my pitiful blood pressure. The world goes fuzzy and I’m forced to wait a few minutes before it refocuses. Having regained some balance I head towards the kitchen.
My kitchen is heaven for the indecisive. The toughest call I’ve ever had to make there was whether to take my chances with a five-year-old jar of peanut butter or just toast the bagel and swallow it plain.
I check on the peanut butter first, just in case future me will have invented time travel and replaced the can. The expiration date on the lid has grown blurry, so I give the thing a sniff. Smells fine. Maybe I’ve been reading the date wrong all along. I carefully lick a tiny bit from the spoon. Having survived, I let Hamster help me examine the findings. He seems pleased enough. I decide to trust his judgement.
As concerned about my wellbeing as her brother, Snickerdoodle joins us before long to demand her lawful share. I give her a spoon of her own to lick. She daintily carries it over to the kitchen corner, to properly enjoy near her food bowl. I feed another spoonful to Hamster. Both so he doesn’t harass her for hers and because the smacking sounds he makes licking the sticky paste are the auditory equivalent of sipping hot chocolate with whipped cream and extra marshmallows.
A sinkful of dirty spoons later, we’re all fed and quite content. Still, no sign of sleep on the horizon. Can as well have another coffee.
I pick one out of a dozen of recently downloaded horror flicks from the previous decade, while ‘Doodle scornfully watches Hamster’s Quixotic campaign against the coffee machine. Luckily for both knight and windmill, he dares approach no further. Instead he flings his brazen insults at the monster from the safety of the kitchen’s floor. Shamefully vanquished by the whisker wielding paladin’s vociferous onslaught, the dragon obediently yields a mugful of its dark, steaming blood.
I carry my spoils back to the living room, turn off the light, and curl up in front of the TV screen. With the click of a button, I’m submerged in the cliched lives and deaths of the members of a family living in a remodeled former asylum for the criminally insane.
I may have given up on creepypasta readings after last year’s debacle, but I refuse to forgo my second favorite pastime. I need my scary movies to know that I’m still alive and that things aren’t half as bad as they could be. After all, no matter how fucked up shit gets, at least it’s not psycho-killer-ghost fucked up. If that isn’t reassuring, I don’t know what is.
My only precaution is sticking to movies that have been in circulation for at least two years without any weird incidents reported among viewers. Probably not the wisest litmus test choice. But if I was into wise choices, I probably wouldn’t be proofing two dollar tabloids for a living. Besides, you can’t go dissing medical marijuana just because you overdosed on crack cocaine.
The darkness on screen becomes one with the darkness in the room, as I reach a peculiar state of deep meditation. Immersed to the point of near tranquility, I follow the protagonist down a bleak corridor between two rows of heavy wooden doors. A few are open, cutting gaping holes of complete blackness in the murk. I try to look inside, but the point-of-view character knows better. Some kinds of darkness are meant to stay dark. Even the cats seem to deliberately stay away from the TV. In fact, both have disappeared around the time the family moved into the asylum-turned-mansion.
In all probability they’ve spent the past half hour spreading litter box sand on my pillows. A decade ago it might have bothered me. These days I’m pretty sure 70% of my lung and stomach contents are a mixture of sand, fur and cat poop.
Another door half open. Another glimpse of nothingness. One of these rooms must hold something so horrid, no amount of darkness could ever disguise it. There’s no avoiding it, no matter how slow the camera glides through the hall. Only so many of them can be empty. It’s just a matter of time until you reach one that isn’t.
Suddenly, all I can think is “Please, oh please, don’t let it be grey and reptilian.”
Every step punctuated by a soft muffled thump, the camera movement grows increasingly shaky. A barely perceptible sourceless phosphorescence slowly tints the dingy hallway with a new shade of looming evil.
Glimpses of heavy furniture outlines lash out from behind the next door. Across the hall, a sudden gust of wind launches forward a billowing curtain ghost. I can all but sense the touch of its icy tendrils on my sweaty face. The alien glow shimmering amidst octopoid shadows merges the hallway with my living room, transforming both into one suffocating aquatic enclosure- a syrupy underwater purgatory. The building pressure makes my eardrums tingle uncomfortably. My lungs wheeze hysterically, struggling to draw in one part air, two parts claustrophobia.
Choking and flailing, I sink through every ominous water tank of my childhood nightmares. Though inaudible and thoroughly concealed, the leathery presence of its gargantuan dwellers radiates through every fiber of my consciousness.
My leg muscles cramp in rhythm with the accelerating thumping. I hold down one fluffy-socked foot against the couch cushions, squeezing it as if it were a foreign object. The silence deepens. My heartbeat resonates through the hollow expanse of the cimmerian cavern, a faint echo of the recently muted thumping. Fingernails dig through soft fleece, bite into the flesh of my calf. I would have cried out if I had any air left in my lungs, but I’ve long since forgotten how to breathe.
Another pitchy doorway. Another rectangle of unfathomable nothingness. No monster in sight- only the utmost monstrosity of anticipation.
A slight disturbance in the viscous ichor makes the proximity of my thalassic demons ever so much more apparent. My throat dries up even as my chest fills with liquid panic. My larynx feels like the talcum-powdered inside of a latex glove.
I can no longer feel the icy tips of my fingers. There’s no telling where my body ends and the darkness begins.
My temples are ready to crack under the pressure of Lovecraftian tentacles, when a sudden bolt of crimson lightning tears the clammy duskiness asunder.
The bright flash sets my eyeballs on fire, melting my overloaded brain to a mash. My ears are ringing from the resonating scream. I don’t remember screaming.
At the same moment, something blurry and skeletal pounces at the screen. I can’t quite make out its cadaverous features in the blinding beam of bright red light. The room reverberates with the blood chilling roar of tearing tendons and living flesh being ripped off the bone. The wet chomping sends gory pictures dancing across the blood-tinted blindness of my revving mind. They pulsate with pornographic clarity.
I feel around blindly for the remote. By the time I finally manage to clasp my shaking fingers around it, the action on the screen dies down. The scenery changes, fading into a dismal panorama of gnawed trees and weed-overgrown garden trails. Then I kill it off altogether.
For a second the room is plunged into utter darkness. I press my eyes shut. When I open them, a few feeble rays of early morning light peek back at me through a tiny gap in the curtains. They must have moved at some point during the night. I’m quite certain I pulled them shut tight last evening.
I get up to re-adjust the fabric before I pass out on the couch. I sneak a single fugitive glance outside, immediately regretting it. The little bitch is still there. Where the fuck are her parents? Should child services be notified?
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