It touches me. I am sat here, with an injured foot resting on a cushion, reeling from seeing a flash of my dead ex-girlfriend, having upset my current imaginary girlfriend, and still trying to cling to a belief that I have not totally lost touch with reality. What a great time for my ears to fill with a classical solo played out on a harp that I don’t have. Excellent!
I lay down, resting my head on another cushion, and when the composition finishes, I say out loud to myself ‘That was beautiful.’
I fall asleep.
It is early, I have another hour or two before the sun will fully rise and the noise and stench of the cesspit below me with it, but I fall asleep all the same.
I dream of the girl who looks like Sarah sat in her glass bedroom, delicately perched on a transparent stool.
Her eyes shine and sparkle, her painted skin the work of hours of delicate love from the brush in my hand. She looks exquisite and I feel proud. Real proud.
She smiles up at me and I know I have finally found someone to love me unconditionally. I pour my attention over her and she responds with acceptance and joy. One day, in this dream days go by as effortlessly as leaves falling from a tree in autumn, my brush slips and I ruin her smile.
I have marred the happiness of this beautiful girl in front of me. In a guilty rage, I smash her fragile glass world. The red mist clouds my thoughts, I completely lose control. I love her and I am ruining everything, unable to stop.
I awake, still laid on the sofa, my skin moist with sweat. My imaginary girlfriend, her blonde locks tucked behind her ears as she leans over me, is caressing my forehead, shushing and soothing me.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ I whisper through dry lips.
‘I’m glad you’re here too,’ she replies.
3.4
I get up again, even though the sun is now declaring to the city below that it is early morning. To me, early morning is like very late at night to most people. So in effect, I’m staying up late.
She is now gone, perfecting her disappearing and reappearing act, but of course I know this is all down to my subconscious. When I need company, my imagination beckons her appearance. When I don’t, she is gone.
What gets me however, is how I can’t quite place the right words in her mouth. Even if I focus hard, I can’t script our conversations. I wouldn’t want to take all elements of surprise out of it, but I would sometimes like to be asked questions that make me feel she is genuinely interested in me.
I want someone to ask me what toothpaste I use, what my favourite colour is and whether I prefer The Beatles or Elvis. I want someone to interview me.
Like that’s ever going to happen when the only conversations I ever have are with unhinged random strangers in Internet chat forums, with which I create alias’s to discuss religion and atheism, politics and revolution, science, sport and bizarre sexual fetishes for when I’m in the mood for a childish snigger.
The last fetish I found myself discussing was the secret pleasures of Furries, which is where people enjoy dressing up in animal costumes to have sex. They make the corresponding animal noises too. It made me wonder if any of them chose the Hyena as their animal character. I would hate to have someone laughing at me while we’re at it.
3.5
I am standing in the centre of my spiral shower. The water washes over my face, and runs down my body like liquid love.
I close my eyes and my imaginary girlfriend dutifully appears. Her wet blonde hair sticks to her face, framing delicious cat like eyes that look up at me through the cascade of water. She licks the drops that splash over her full lips, and my eyes trace their way down to her nipples, red from the burning heat of the shower.
I run my hands over her skin, starting at her face, teasing under her chin and along her neck, moving downwards where my hands separate and flow over her pert breasts and then her smooth, soft tummy, finally resting on her hips, holding her close.
She places her hands over my shoulders and then slides them down onto my chest where they remain; keeping me pushed away just enough to make me want to pull her even closer. I do, and we are pressed against each other, our faces inches apart. We look into each other’s eyes, as the shower continues to soak us.
We kiss. Not a peck on the lips, followed by a courteous smile, and nor a ravenous, hungry, lustful, devouring snog. But a kiss that feels deep and warm and loving.
As our lips begin to part, I open my eyes again. Her eyes have become sky blue and her hair jet black. Her cheekbones are full, and her nose turns up just like my lost love. My head is spinning, as her face becomes a blur. I cannot think straight and I’m caught in a whirlwind. Part of me feels intense desire to hold her and cry. Another part of me is nauseous, my heart pulling tight.
I am taken over by the last part, the part that burns with rage of what I am doing to myself. How dare I start to imagine Sarah here with me? Why am I putting myself though this conveyor belt of pain and past shame? I refuse to look at her for more than a few seconds, and as she smiles up at me I push her aside. She smacks against the frosted green glass, and I escape.
My breathing is erratic and I pause in the bathroom. I can see the door, but I turn to face the shower. My bottom lip trembles with a mixture of sadness and fear. I am scared, but I miss her.
I see her flesh move behind the glass as she steps forward out from under the splashing water and towards the exit. Towards me. She follows the winding path, like a snake uncoiling its body.
I hold my breath. Fear takes hold of my brain. An overwhelming sense of foreboding danger fills my body. I shake; the water on my skin is freezing over. She steps closer still, and I tremble. It is all I can do.
She comes into view, and I feel the air sucked out of my lungs when I see my imaginary girlfriend, blonde hair dripping over her steaming naked body. She is open-mouthed and looking scared her self.
‘Baby? Did I do something wrong?’ she mumbles.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t say anything. I just stumble back against the wall of the bathroom, where a misted mirror hangs. My skin rubs against it and creates a creaking that echoes, accompanying the sloshing and patter of the shower still running. I slide down until I am sat against the wall, naked. I look at my body and feel exposed.
My imaginary girlfriend covers her breasts with one arm and her modesty down below with her other hand. I guess she’s feeling the sudden self-consciousness that I have just become aware of.
I cover my eyes with my hands, blocking everything out. I hear her footsteps along the tiled floor as she leaves me. Alone.
4.1
In the second bedroom, I have a home gym built up. I spend a lot of time just walking the treadmill and thinking. I also use the weights often, but the exercise mat hasn't seen anywhere near enough stomach crunches. I feel my stomach; yeah I need to do more of those.
I pull the taut leather gloves, red, down over my hands. Instead of laces they have Velcro straps, so I strap them tight around my wrists. I push the punch-bag that is hung from a bracket high up on the wall so it swings back and forth. My eyes follow like a predator waiting for the right moment to strike.
Bam!
I punch my fist deep into the centre of its bulk. The chains holding the punch-bag rattle and jolt violently, but the heavy bag itself barely moves. It absorbs the force of my strike, does a little jiggle, and then continues its swing.
Right now, I'm feeling vicious. My own nightmares should be scared of me.
Another punch slams into the bag and my face grimaces; teeth bared and lips pulled back like some feral creature, hungry for the kill.
I'm feeling so damn dangerous. I don't flush the toilet; I scare the shit out of it.
Blam! Pow! A one two rocks the enemy in front of me, and I can feel the muscles in my arms burning.
I drill the bag with punches, one after another, grunting as I unleash all the pent up aggression and paranoia and distain for the madness that accompanies my own self-imprisonment. Sweat pouring f
rom my forehead, my lungs gasping for every particle of oxygen to enter my mouth, I slow down and then stop.
I hug the bag, like a heavyweight in the twelfth round whose legs are about to give way. I have given the punch bag everything I can, working as both the fighter and the coach spurring myself on with ridiculous bravado, and still the bag has beaten me.
I lose this fight every time.
All the adrenaline in me flows out and I return to the laconic state that I am more familiar with. I sit down on the bench and hunch my shoulders forward, resting my elbows on my knees. As I undo the straps on my gloves and throw them to the ground, I look around my home gym. How much money have I spent on all this equipment? I have kettledrums, I have a multitude of weights, I have a bike and a cross-trainer and even a pull up machine, and yet all I really need is a floor to do push-ups and sit-ups on.
4.2
When Sarah died, her life insurance paid off the mortgage on the apartment. I still needed money to eat and pay bills, but instead of going out to work, I quit my job and put into action what to me seemed like an ingenious idea. I sold the apartment to an investor who agreed to allow me to rent it off him, just enough to cover his mortgage costs. That way I was suddenly flushed with cash and no longer needed to work. We both had life insurance, but when Sarah died I cancelled mine. Not like there is anyone to look after if I pop my clogs.
So what’s the reason for tonight’s workout? Well, I didn’t sleep today. I spent the entire day awake, laid out across various places around the apartment.
I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t bring myself to close my eyes. I had to scan every inch of each room I was in, over and over again. I don’t believe anymore that my imagination was betraying me.
I have always had complete faith in my brain, no matter how sociopathic I have become, and I continue to believe it only means me well. I now know; Sarah is haunting me.
Why she is haunting me I have no idea, but I know she is. That last look I saw on her face, just before she left the apartment for the last time, has stayed with me ever since. No matter how much I stare at the framed photo of her by the bed, smiling carefree, that look is burned onto my retina. I see it everywhere. Now I am also seeing her, not just that look. She has returned to finally destroy what little is left of me. To seek her revenge.
Yes, I may be paranoid. Yes, I may have completely lost it, but maybe I lost it years ago. My chosen lifestyle as a Hikikomori wasn’t only because of the guilt I felt for what happened to Sarah. Sarah’s death was just the final straw in a growing understanding of how this world shits on you from a great height, daily. I became so disillusioned with society, with every society I could find or read about, that the only way I could imagine myself living on my own terms, was to close that door on the rest of the world.
Now that door remains shut and only opens for shopping deliveries and take-away food.
4.3
The doorbell rings and I know who it is. I edge the door open just enough. The pizza delivery guy knows the drill, and turns the pizza box vertically. He slides it through, I sign the receipt, pass it back through and begin to close the door.
Maybe it is the paranoia taking over me, but I look up.
I catch his eyes through the slit in his helmet. He seems almost as shocked as I am that we have made eye contact for the first time in two and a half years. I wonder, in this split second, when the sight of his eyes suddenly validates his existence in my fragile hidden world, what he actually thinks of me. I assume I am not like his other regular deliveries, but does he think I am mad? Or worse still, does he pity me?
Is he thinking; This sad, lonely man who traps himself in a cold, empty apartment, whose skin is pale and unhealthy from lack of sunlight, who is so scared of sharing even the briefest of moments in his life with anyone that until now has hung his head low and defocused his eyes to maintain disconnection.
I know. I cut a pretty pathetic figure.
The pizza delivery guy tenses his back as if I’m about to attack him.
‘Hey man.’
I don’t respond, even though my lips separate, no sound comes out.
‘You okay dude?’
He is trying, but I’m giving him nothing in return.
He reaches slowly and pulls the signed receipt and pen from my clenched hand. He has to tug before I let go. He turns away and walks down the dark corridor. There goes humanity, there goes society, and there goes my fleeting chance at communicating like a real person.
I am frozen in place with the door opened inches wide. I’m peering out like a deranged spy. I remind myself that this door should remain shut, but my eyes peer into the darkness of the corridor that seems to go on forever. At the end is a blackness, where the light bulb has fizzled out, and where the pizza delivery guy disappears into the void.
I feel the void calling me, the blackness beckoning me towards it. I slam the door shut.
4.4
It is now midnight and I have yet to see or hear either my imaginary girlfriend or what I can only imagine is the ghost of Sarah.
I walk around, from room to room with my ears pricked up like a lone wolf at night. My senses are heightened, I am listening intently but all I can hear is the sticking and unsticking of the bare soles of my feet on the wooden floor.
I move from the doorway, to the open plan lounge and kitchen. My foot prods into the football, and it rolls forward bouncing off the back of the sofa. I catch my breath, startled by the unexpected contact and noise. My heart either skips a beat or drums several within a second, I can’t be sure. But I raise my hand to my chest to calm myself down. This is not healthy.
I tread carefully into the hall towards my bedroom, where I walk around the bed and back. All is as I left it; the duvet scrunched up into a mountain and my pillow hanging half off the mattress, threatening to fall to the floor. I leave it there, teetering on the edge, and make my way further down the hall, past the second bedroom, which I use as the gym, and onwards to the storage room.
I look inside, scanning the smaller room. It is full of empty boxes, and some boxes unopened; dumb online impulse buys that I couldn’t bring myself to face once they had arrived. In one corner are all my necessities, stacked up in bulk; toilet paper to last years and paper plates and plastic cutlery by the hundreds, which I replenish in the kitchen cupboards every so often.
I also have large black bin bags filled to the brim ready for the weekly rubbish collection. I leave the bags out in the corridor on the Thursday mornings before I go to bed. I have no idea which one of the neighbours on this floor has taken it upon themselves to take my rubbish down, but no one ever complains. The bins are full and ready to be put outside later on. They smell, so I reach for the handle and pull the door closed.
Onwards, and now I inspect the bathroom; the scene of the crime. I breathe in deep and investigate a little too bullish. I guess I just want her to know that I am not scared of her. I am, but this isn’t the first time I find myself trying to convince Sarah of a lie.
The bathroom is empty too. There is no sign of her anywhere in this place, and no sign of my imaginary girlfriend either.
I call out for her.
‘Sweetheart?’
No response. This isn’t right.
4.5
I lie down on my bed and will my imaginary girlfriend to appear. I start to give up, but then her voice soothes my fears.
‘Baby, you seem so tense. What’s wrong?’
‘I missed you tonight, where were you?’ I ask her, our fingers intertwining.
‘I’m sorry sugar, I’m here now.’
She brings my hand up to her lips and kisses it softly. I feel instantly better.
‘I feel guilt over Sarah, and I wish I didn’t. I wish I could let it go, to accept that what happened was out of my control, just terrible bad luck.’
I open up to her, feeling she deserves my honesty.
Sure, you could say it was me facing my demons, being honest with myself. But if I
admit that now I would stop, and I don’t want to stop.
‘Go on pumpkin,’ she encourages me.
‘I want to let it go. I think you can help me. I want to give myself to you, to be free and open with you.’
We look into each other’s eyes for a few moments, before she speaks softly with a voice that gently caresses my skin with her warm breath.
‘I am here for you, and I understand. I will help you through your guilt. You can trust me,’ she promises.
I smile, and with a giggle she stretches and yawns like a cat purring as it settles by a cosy fireplace. She is tired, and so I must be tired. But my lips are dry, so I drop off the bed to my feet and head over to the kitchen.
The water splashes and spins into the glass like a whirlpool, but when I turn the tap off it only takes a moment for the water to settle. I lift the glass to my lips and take a satisfying gulp. I enjoy the sensation of cold water on my warm tongue and then trickling down my throat.
I head back to the bedroom, this time to sleep. I am tired; from a daytime spent holding my eyelids open.
As I enter the room and sit on the edge of the bed, I look over my shoulder to see she now has her back to me and is sleeping. I pull the duvet down just enough to be able to lean over and give her a sleep well kiss. As I move nearer, I notice her hair. It is inky and oily and sable and like the night sky over the Atlantic Ocean.
Startled, I jump back to my feet, backing off into the corner of the room. The door is on the other side of the bed, and I quickly assess the distance if I have to run around. Could I get there in time before she got up?
My heartbeat is pounding in my chest and my recently wetted tongue has dried right up again. I edge my way slowly and as quietly as possible against the wall, as far away from Sarah as I can. I keep my eyes trained on her the entire time, watching for any movement. When I reach the door, I pause, trying to get a good look at her face; are her eyes open watching me, is she awake, or even alive? It is too dark to see and I am not waiting any longer, and I am gone.
The Haunted Hikikomori Page 3
