The day began its close, shifting into night, allowing shade to blanket and overwhelm the streets and envelop the unassuming homes as has always been. Clouds commenced an overhead occupation of the heavens and nearly all was silent. Lone crickets vibrated in gleeful anticipation of the coming pitch. Their voice alone broke through the thickness of the darkness but upon approach they retreated. They disappeared. They were forgotten.
One apartment in the oncoming gloom stood there alone. In appearance it remained as any other it surrounded yet unlike them it was a bright speck in an ever darkening world; defiant. Dimly lit tree line shadows danced slyly across its rooftops and siding as a cool breeze invaded an open sliding window and carried soft whispers inside.
Modest decor filled its several small rooms. Its innards were teeming with bookshelves scattered high with varying literature and family photographs of the greatest of motley assortments. Books by Hesse and DaVinci, by authors and philosophers both popular and those obscure lay intertwined in harmonious accompaniment upon dusty shelves. The television set wore proudly a tubular crown decoration of signed documents of marriage. Both were for the most part untouched, their purpose having long gone unneeded. All was seemingly synonymous with the outside world in regards to lightless silence, all but an aged stereo turned quite low, enabling sound however indiscernible, and of course a small writing desk. One facing opposite an enormous wall to wall sliding window with which the breeze was presently occupying wholly with its forced entry.
It was a small oaken desk of modest human handcraftsmanship. A hand me down of a grandfather or beyond perhaps. Solid and stalwart as the apartment it resided, it fit in none the least. Perhaps inspiration were the focal point of its uncharacteristic location opposite the window, a three foot chair filled gap all that lay between them. A light twirl of this chair put oneself face to face with the expansive universe displayed prominently and powerfully from the second story balcony. Then again perhaps the owners manic desires, a constant changeling, were the driving force behind the furnishing disarray. It mattered not. The desk were but a vessel. Alone it was nothing. As we oftentimes forget we too are.
Besides the radio the only other sound within the dwelling was that of steady flowing water coming from the back of the dwelling and combined they were all that knifed through the void and negated the numb of silence. The tropical warmth enveloped her. As her eyes gently closed she transported herself into another place entirely. A simpler place. A place where belonging means more than a possession, it signifies a desired involvement. It signifies a purpose. A purpose that is not muddled by everyday monotony and self-absorbed delusional necessities. Instead it is a power bestowed upon you from something far greater and infusing you deep within, including alignment and re-acquaintance with the All. It makes you complete. In being complete you avoid the tendency for suicide. Not the conventional sense of the wording where death physically becomes you but instead a self-induced destructive vandalism of mind, body and especially spirit minus the finality of sentience at ones own hands. Most of this escaped her entirely and she was now far away outdoors. Vibrant and verdant jungle falls rushed over and down her. The humidity was making her youthful skin glisten and every pore tingle. The soothing, moist heat ran along her beautiful tanned curves and then………and then it stopped.
She turned around, looking to the shower head and then to the knobs. She stared with fierce intensity, making one believe as though she deeply foresaw some prophetic message were to soon follow her inquisitive glares.
This moment of interruption had annihilated her senses back to the reality that she was not lost within some forsaken, fertile lagoon and with a heavy sigh all of the necessities and unpleasantries of this loathsome reality quickly rushed back upon her and she jiggled the inexpensive, warehouse purchased, loose knobs.
From her meddling a shriek far along within the pipes subsequently belched forth a gush of air followed by the usual water and she was nearly knocked over due to its intense frigidity. It was cold enough to have given itself a semi-solid and icy consistency.
Clumsily she fondled the knobs and finally succeeded in correct directions to ebb the arctic blast.
“Shhhiiittt,” she proclaimed in relief, cursing herself for having let her mind wander enough to miss the inevitable ailing of her hot water into its much colder counterpart upon the emptying of the tank in her hall closet.
“So cold,” she gasped still shaking.
“I’ve never felt the water so cold.”
She stared a few moments longer at the shower head and handles and then conceded any further notion of peculiarity. She was the precise type to forget about things unnaturally quickly and so here….and thereafter…she did.
Drying herself, she caressingly adjusted this and that of her womanhood within the mirror and something sharply came to mind.
The desk!
She peered round the bathroom corner and down the short hallway upon the silhouetted writing desk, squinting. Finding nothing unnaturally interesting she soon returned to her ogling.
The evening for her was to be uneventful, nothing planned out and though this was an abnormality she felt no inclination to change it whatsoever.
Bare as nature intended she proceeded to the closet where she chose a plain tank top and skimpy underwear and headed for the kitchen giving the desk and its lamped headdress a passing glance. She poured some juice and with it some ideas on how to spend her evening at home. She thought delving into a book sounded the most appealing but……..no! Writing! Writing sounded much more entertaining.
Now this was a perplexing oddity. She never wrote! At least not recreationally. Too much schoolwork numbed any fleeting desire to keep the pen moving whatsoever.
Never mind that. Perhaps she would call some friends, go online, look at some pornography, or even write.
Write!?
Where was this coming from?
“I do not want to write,” she yelled. “I don’t even like writing.”
Was her sanity slipping away from her? What was she doing yelling out as if some otherworldly possession were soon imminent?
She took her juice and sat at the writing desk. Here she remained silent, vigilant, and long moments passed. The longevity of this pause brought great repose and with it she finally took notice of the radios low murmur.
The whispers surrounded the airways of the apartment.
Slipping from her roost she turned it off and the faint chattering faded from recognition.
She soon became aware of the relative pitch in which she sat and again pondered her erratic notions of compulsive writing. A heavy sigh escaped her and that was all. She ignited the lamp upon the desk and sat still once again, basking in the illumination fired from its miniature sun. From the lamp her shadow spread long, outward across the carpet and far up the opposing wall. Unnaturally far actually but a bob of her head was confirmation enough to quickly negate any imaginative ramblings being conjured.
Her preoccupation to write began again; abruptly. With it came the notions of why it was happening. It would be a pleasure to vent through the written word a little, she just had never done so before. To reflect and reiterate her current dramas, dreams and fantasies would be a blissful retreat from the monotony of her weary existence, yet where to begin?
The notion to scribe was penetrating deep, stabbing her mind in a compulsion towards compliance. Rubbing a hand though her hair she concluded that the inclination, though foreign, were upon her and she could very well produce something viable or a least memorable. She had never before seen the benefits to transposing ones mind onto paper so against it she could find no argument. For what is an argument stemmed form ignorance? She needed only to find a medium and a subject with which to elaborate upon and she could begin her new found mental absorption.
This is what she did.
She set about the preparations in a flurry of motion. Drawers were pulled outward. Papers came forth and were spilled and pencils and pens danced across her feet having left their wooden sanctuary and fallen. It was a frantic, calculated chaos. It was methodical. Once completed, everything was set about upon the desk in perfect harmony. Everything was set about, and where it rested, it truly belonged.
Then it began.
It was much akin to a childish dare within her mind. A dare to express. One compelling force was driving her will to simply begin and another was frightening her, pleading her to recalculate and surrender her new fancy.
Nothing had been put onto the papers face so far and in boredom she turned around in her chair and looked far outside. All was still except for the slight breeze progressing the families of clouds across the heavens. They were intermittent spots against the palette of spatial darkness above, the embodiment of the blotchy skin of the sky.
There was her and there was this and that was all.
Darkness. Lonely darkness and her, neatly silhouetted in the windows frame by the soft lamplight emanating from atop the desk.
Turning back around she picked up the pencil to initiate the task at hand. It certainly were a task for it was compiled of great sequences of thoughts and actions not entirely of her own willing. Elaborating upon this phenomenon escaped her for a writer she was not and she did not desire to explain it regardless for the entire affair rank deeply of absolute absurdity.
But alas, though semi-reluctant, she began.
‘Twas a treacherously dark and stormy winters eve……
Her hand sailed across the page, words materializing as if on their own accord. Upon the finishing of the introductory phrase, an immense blast of lightning shot down directly outside of her window. The crack from the thunder was so loud that she covered her ears and waited a moment to continue her work while her eyes readjusted from the incredible brightness of the lightning’s flare.
‘Dark and stormy night indeed,’ she thought, though it were not entirely stormy a short while ago, just overcast. With a swig of her juice she continued. Her sudden drive to write was brightening her mental disposition immensely. Maybe she could draft some story of great note. Maybe.
Something else then occupied her attention. Why had she begun her story in such a foul manner? It was totally cliché and besides, she distasted entirely weather and moods of such sort.
So………
‘Twas a treacherously dark and stormy winter’s eve…
Yes. This was established and its associated idiosyncrasies notwithstanding, she continued.
‘Twas a treacherously dark and stormy winter’s eve inevitably leading to a loss of power throughout the house………
Instantly there was overwhelming darkness.
That which had remained at bay outside had now penetrated deep within and consumed the apartment entirely in its black maw. She sat there motionless awhile except for her trembling hand and lips.
Her breaths came quick and shallow. They tintinnabulated, vi et armis, against the deafness and this intensified exponentially her fear of events present and those upcoming unforeseen.
Outside, cross street houses remained lit which mattered little to her in means of aid and compounded greatly the sense of worry rising within her. It certainly had to be of great coincidence and coincidence only that she was predetermining such events to happen, such events to become actualities.
An idea unexpectedly struck her, which seldom did, to capitalize on this proposed manner of prediction and write of other matters. Those of a more beneficial nature. Inheriting money, for example, or a new car. Anything more positive and perhaps lucrative than a cheesy horror story. Something that she could benefit from.
With a heavy sigh she opened drawer after drawer within the desk and with some stroke of luck came to grasp within her hand a candle, and then next, a lighter. Had those always been there? She did not know, nor at the moment care.
Her hands trembled as she held the flame over the waxen wick resulting in the candle soaring to life before her.
She suddenly noticed the air coming in from the window to be unnervingly chilly so she closed it and continued about her tale taking great care in establishing a lighter mood and topic.
At the culmination of a short paragraph, which seemed to take her an eternity to write, there came from above an ear splitting crash from above. It truly sounded as if the roof had been ripped off though upon inspection it certainly had not.
Directly following the loud noise came a knock at the door. They came instantly, one after another. The knock shared mysteriosity with the sound from above. It was very forceful and perfectly rhythmic.
One…two…three…four.
Ignoring both for a moment, she finished a few words and completed the final verse of her story for now.
She diligently lay her pencil down. Mountains had crumbled and success was hers. She had opened within her a new chapter of existence.
She got up and went to the door for her curiosity still lingered there. She traversed the short expanse of carpet towards the door.
The carpet was incredibly smooth beneath her feet and she marveled in it wriggling between her toes.
She had arrived.
She placed one hand slowly upon the door. Cool to the touch, she added her other hand and peered out the small peeping hole. A small image was irradiated before her and encircled in the all too familiar darkness.
Not surprisingly whatsoever, presented before her within the ring, was her porch. The dingy yellow light from the neighbors doorway illuminated sorely the concrete slab between both doors.
She sighed.
“How uneventful,” she muttered.
With this she opened her apartment door just she had opened the one within her mind which had brought her to this very point. They were tantamount. They were gateways to the unknown and maneuvering them should be done lightly; carefully.
The door now reached its full open potential and in its mouth opposite her was a masked and cloaked figure who was black as the night surrounding her apartment. His respirator and goggles glinted slightly in the over door lighting.
For only a single instant did they stare at one another in this fashion, the dark figure swaying slowly, looking ever light upon its feet. Feet were merely guessed by herself for the cloak and robes covered its body entirely.
From the instant of the doors opening the figure lunged inhumanly fast directly at her and enveloped her completely.
The darkness now everything.
The unwelcome beings gurgling shrill as it carried out its absorption act was utterly terrifying and deafening and yet within a single heart beat it was over.
It was complete.
It was the end.
The door is still open yet the porch remains clear. A breeze circles through the apartment from doorway to window and at times it blows back again. It rustles pages high upon shelves and stirs certain leaves upon the many plants throughout the small, now lonely living areas. At the writing desk, the lone candle flickers, still ever defiant against the night. Defiant as she once could have been. It illuminates well the labors of her ill-fated hand strokes upon the lone parchment which dances slightly along the tabletop in the currents occupying the interior of the room.
‘Twas a treacherously dark and stormy
winters eve inevitably leading to a loss of
power throughout the house. A crash from above and a knock at the door were precursor to an insatiable appetite satisfied by………………………………………………………………………HER!’