The Haunted Hikikomori

by Pearce, Lawrence

  ‘Er, no it’s okay darling. I thought you were ... What happened to my photo of Sarah? Where have you put it?’

  ‘Oh, sorry lover boy, I didn’t realize you wanted it out. I was just settling in,’ she confesses.

  Settling in? After two and a half years, she’s picking now to settle in? Wait a minute. This is my home, she doesn’t settle in. She has no right to settle in.

  ‘No, it’s okay, I’m sorry I reacted so weirdly in there. But, can you please put the photo back. I want it back in its place.’

  I’m such a wimp.

  ‘Sure baby, I’ll do it right now.’

  She steps back into the bedroom and I hear a draw sliding open and then closing again with a thud. The scratching of the metal photo frame against a wooden surface tells me she has put it back into place. I feel better now. I don’t know why, but I feel safer.

  In the kitchen, I go through my tea making routine, but without the usual style. I sip a little too eagerly and burn my mouth, hissing and cursing my own stupidity. I place my cup on the counter, lean forward and slide my tongue under a running tap of cold water.

  6.2

  On the sofa, I lay flat on my back with my head propped up against the armrest; ready for my psychotherapy session.

  My imaginary girlfriend duly obliges, placing the tea I had forgotten onto my newly named tea table and then sitting behind me like some sexy, kissable Sigmund Freud.

  I don’t turn around to look, but I imagine her in a pin-stripe skirt with her legs crossed, black heels on, thin black-framed glasses perched on the end of her nose and holding a note pad and pen which she teasingly sucks on with her full, luscious, red lips.

  ‘So Mr Poppet, what was your relationship like with your mother?’

  Seriously? Can my imagination not come up with a more original line of questioning? Sigh.

  ‘My mother was all I had. We didn’t have a father, and we used to go on trips to the beach during the off-season when it was cold and rainy because it was cheaper. My little sister was only a baby, not older than a year.’

  I pause, and just like my perfect idea of a psychotherapist, she doesn’t interrupt and waits with patience for me to continue. I continue.

  ‘I remember one evening, dusk, maybe later. I was sitting by the window overlooking the sea. My mother, with my baby sister in her arms told me to keep staring up at the sky so that I wouldn’t miss the shooting stars. Then I heard the door close.’

  I feel my eyes well up.

  ‘A few moments later, I saw a woman walking barefoot on the beach. I don’t know what made me look down from the sky at that moment, but as soon as I did I knew it was my mother and sister.

  She walked into the waves. I watched. She went further in, until the waves were up to her waist and then her shoulders and then she was gone, my sister with her.’

  I pause again, gathering myself. I sit up and grip hold of the edge of the sofa, where the undersides of my knees rest.

  ‘If only I had been a better kid maybe she would have taken me too. Or maybe she wouldn’t have left at all.’

  My imaginary girlfriend now breaks the psychotherapy rule and interrupts me.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known you would never see her again,’ she offers.

  I turn my face towards her; her sincerity makes me desire eye contact.

  6.3

  As my eyes move across to her face, they first pass the mirror and I notice the reflection of her back. Black hair. When I get to her front, blonde locks frame her face.

  I double take and my eyes dart back to the mirror, where the reflection now shows the blonde curls falling down her back and against the wooden rest of the chair she sits on. I exhale, allowing the sudden tension in my chest and shoulders to relax again.

  ‘What?’ she asks, catching my odd reaction.

  I feel embarrassed now; not only have I opened up about my sob-story childhood, I’m also acting like a paranoid fool. I force a laugh out and smile.

  ‘Nothing.’

  As I turn back to her from the mirror, it’s all Sarah.

  Her blue eyes pierce into my very soul and I am struck motionless, turned into stone as if fallen victim to Medusa’s stare. Her black hair, dark as death, draws me in, and I feel paralyzed.

  My eyes blur over and my vision becomes a patchwork of colour and tones; browns and reds, spots of black. A yellow tint grows and spreads until it fills even my peripheral.

  I shake my head and rub my eyes and my vision returns to clarity. My imaginary girlfriend draws into focus as she leans forward over me, her blonde hair swinging softly in front of my face. She looks concerned for me. I am concerned for me.

  ‘Why are you behaving like this? It doesn’t make sense,’ she asks, running her gentle hand over my stubble-ravaged cheek.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I respond, succumbing to my own mental fragility, ‘I don’t know what is happening to me. I’m seeing things. I think I’m going crazy.’

  ‘Baby, you’re not going crazy,’ she giggles, ‘I’m the one seeing things, I’m the crazy one. You? You are absolutely fine.’

  Of course, when she is only a figment of my imagination, my own creation, then she feels what I feel. Nothing more. She is nothing but a glorified mirror of my psyche, just a little prettier and with breasts. Double D cups, I decide.

  Her breasts hang low and swing in her vest. Her vest and panties are now black. When she notices that her breasts have attracted my attention she stands upright again, blushing. How cute.

  I stand up and ruffle my hair. I step forward. She disappears just in time so that I don’t walk right through her.

  6.4

  I remember that last look from Sarah, before she walked out the door into the dark corridor.

  I remember the vacant expression on her face, those eyes sullen and deep, staring at me with sadness and anger, smothered by despair. I remember how her eyelids dropped as I screamed for her to never come back.

  I remember how the first thing I did when that door slammed shut, was head over to the kitchen and make myself a cup of tea.

  I head over to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea.

  Who am I kidding? I never drink tea, that’s Sarah’s bag. She’s the one with the favourite teacup.

  ‘I’m a tea-making pro,’ I hear her voice saying in my mind, echoing from the past.

  No, I drink whiskey. Lots of whiskey.

  I grab the large bottle of Jack Daniels and unscrew the cap. I slosh the amber liquid into a glass tumbler, and down a good inch of the good stuff.

  That’s better.

  ‘I’m sorry for what I did. And I’m sorry for what I said,’ I pronounce out loud.

  Sarah always hated my drinking.

  She put up with it in the beginning because I was charming, and not afraid. Alcohol dulls the consequences and livens the spirit. It creates impulse and honesty, not like drugs. Drugs create a death of the mind. Drugs turn you into a zombie.

  Alcohol makes you fun, makes you angry, makes you laugh, makes you cry, makes you say things you would rather nobody had heard, makes you refuse to care if anyone had heard, makes you say things others want to say.

  Alcohol also makes you say things you don’t mean, like ‘Don’t ever come back!’

  She didn’t that night, and I have regretted saying that for two and a half years.

  Now she is back, but it is too late for me.

  I feel her behind me, standing in the open plan lounge, watching me as I pour another glass of whiskey.

  ‘Please, just leave me alone. I can’t handle this.’

  ‘No,’ she states.

  I wait for her to continue, but that’s all she gives me. A flat, irrefutable, No.

  ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you taking over her body?’ I scream to Sarah, my words spitting from my quivering bottom lip.

  ‘I’m not taking over anyone’s body. This is mine. This is me!’

  It hits me. Hard.

  Lik
e a hammer through my body, striking down on my head and tearing through me to the floor.

  All the air dissipates. I can’t breath.

  I drop the glass and it shatters on the tiled kitchen floor. Glass pieces fragment and whiskey splashes in all directions. I use the kitchen counter top to steady myself. I block out the spinning apartment. I block out Sarah.

  My blood begins to boil. She has tricked me, posing as my imaginary girlfriend all this time. Humiliating me.

  How could I have been so foolish to not see through it? The alcohol must have created a veil. Now I understand why I couldn’t place the exact words I wanted to hear into my imaginary girlfriend’s mouth, even though I believed I was creating her. She was Sarah all along.

  Did Sarah ever really die? Is this her ghost haunting me for two and a half years for what I shouted as she left the apartment that night, or is she still physically here?

  My mind has been warped, has she has manipulated me, turned me into the pathetic Hikikomori that I became?

  Is she real, alive, destroying my life and mental health in retaliation for what I did back then? A petty, obsessive revenge? Time to find out if this Sarah is a ghost, or flesh and bone.

  I pull open the cutlery draw, and yank out a large knife. The blade glistens under the kitchen spotlights, the wooden handle fits snug in my hand. My fingers grip tight, so tight that the blood pulls from the tips as my skin turns white and my nails dig deep into my palm, threatening to cut straight through.

  I turn to face the apartment, Sarah and my demons. She is gone.

  I am now gone too. Past the point of no return. In my mind, I have already sunk the blade into Sarah’s stomach. If she wants to play hide and seek, let the games commence.

  I stumble forward, as I usually do, knife in hand and murder in mind.

  7.1

  When I close my eyes she becomes real.

  But was the flesh that I could feel Sarah’s? And the Moonberry Musk that I could smell?

  I am surging through the open plan, searching behind the sofa, holding the knife out ready to slash. The lights go out, a devious little trick. No worry, I’m used to seeing through the dark. The world is dark.

  ‘Sarah!’

  I call out for her, but I know she won’t answer. Where is she hiding? The naughty minx.

  I slide open the French windows and step out onto the balcony. The city below is pulsating with poison. It reminds me of the throbbing headaches I would suffer during hangovers. To stop the hangovers, I just carried on drinking; if there is no coming down to sobriety, there is no hangover.

  I suffer hangovers no more.

  Standing here, my chest pumped and my adrenaline flowing, I feel like a warrior conquering a mountain. I look down at the ants below and slash my blade through the air. Their little bodies cut open and the pavement floods with spilt blood. The blood is crimson thick and the stench rises up to fill my nostrils with the scent of failure.

  I step back in and screech the French windows shut. It connects with a thud. I breathe deep the air in my apartment. It is stale. It also smells of failure.

  I get a whiff of Moonberry Musk. It no longer smells sweet. It now also smells of failure.

  I creep towards the hall, the strip that branches out to the different rooms, the tunnel, the void.

  7.2

  The hall becomes a cavern in my mind, extending further into a dark, untouchable void.

  The walls become rock; rough and wet from the damp moisture that clogs up my throat. I place my hands against each wall to steady myself. The touch washes away the images and the walls feel flat once more; thick padded wallpaper against the palm of one hand and the knuckles of the other hand; my fist clenched tight around the knife handle.

  I don’t pull away. I continue to press against the walls as I place one foot in front of the other. My eyes strain in the low light.

  What light there is, moonlight and the city’s artificial glow, streams in through the French windows and gleams off the metal blade. I catch a reflection of my eyes in the blade; heavy bags looking tired and wired.

  Wired and bloodshot, tearful and focused, all at once.

  Eyelids opened wide and pupils dilated to the extreme, I stalk my victim through the black tunnel.

  ‘Sarah. Come on poppet, where are you?’

  I enter the bedroom and the red light from the alarm clock display pierces the darkness. The digits flash zero zero dot zero zero, like they have done for two and half years. I refused to set a time, for then I’d have to acknowledge the hours I waste doing nothing.

  Next to the alarm clock is the photo of Sarah smiling. She looks so sad.

  The bed is empty, apart from the duvet scrunched up, and after a quick scan I know she is not in here. My ears prick up at the sound of harsh running water. The bathroom.

  I run.

  I stand still.

  I stare at the green frosted curvature of the shower enclosure. I feel the steam billowing tickle my skin. I have goosebumps.

  7.3

  Raising my knife, so the blade points down ready for one hell of a stabbing frenzy, flashes of the Alfred Hitchcock movie hit me. I remember the striking soundtrack during the horrific stabbing scene, and find myself giggling at the absurdity of enacting a movie scene.

  I then find myself repulsed by my giggles.

  I then find myself focused on murder once more.

  I step forward, and keep going; entering the shower and winding into the centre. The hot water pours like a waterfall from hell. The clear droplets race down towards the tiled floor. They turn red. I drop my head back and breathe in deep, watching the red rain escape the showerhead.

  I feel surprisingly calm, but sad. So very, very sad.

  I hold my knife-carrying hand out so the tip of the blade collects a droplet. It runs along the metal, trickling along. I hold my hand out too far and my skin is attacked. My hand jerks open at the irrepressible, scolding heat of just a few droplets. The knife falls to the floor.

  It floats towards the plughole, carried by a miniature river of clear water. Rubbing my burnt hand, I look back up to the showerhead to see clear water shooting out.

  I carefully kneel down to retrieve the knife. One last room to check. The gym. One last workout.

  Turning in to the gym, my eyes shunt from the cross-trainer to the treadmill, over to the weights, up to the monkey bar and finally down to the bench. Empty but for the stench of my own sweat.

  A thud shatters the silence. My ears prick up immediately and I instinctively know where to go; back to the bedroom.

  7.4

  I creep though the doorframe, the heavy wooden door swung wide-open and creaking back after rebounding off the wall. The first place I look is the bedside cabinet, and the first thing I see is the photo of Sarah laid face down.

  I step in and walk around the bed. I lay my knife on the sheets and continue to the cabinet, where I pick up the photo frame. As I lift it, glass falls. I turn it over to see the glass has cracked right along Sarah’s once beautiful smile.

  Behind me, a rustle of duvet on the bed makes me turn around just in time to see Sarah escape towards the lounge, the kitchen, and the front door.

  I drop the photo to the soft cushioning duvet and chase after; my heart bursting through my chest; thumping against my insides. I chase Sarah towards the front door. I cannot lose her again.

  7.5

  She is reaching the front door. I am reaching her.

  Time freezes and my face is fixed in a grimace while my hands are stretched out in front of me and my gaze is locked on my target; Sarah.

  Time freezes, or perhaps just morphs into something more tangible, something under my control. I want it all to pause, so that the past can become the present, and the future merely a play button away.

  In this moment of timelessness, images pass through my mind. They are all one and the same. Time does not separate these images; they are jumbled together in one instance.

  I am swallowing my n
erves as I ready myself to speak to Sarah for the first time. The house party around us is a whirl of noise, distracting me from the perfect opening line. It doesn’t matter. She finds my stumbling words cute.

  I am arriving at the house party, only because I know Sarah is there.

  We are making love in a hotel in Edinburgh, on a romantic weekend away, the taste of hot chocolate whiskey still in our mouths from an hour before when we are braving the cold outside, wandering through the night market.

  An hour before, we are drinking hot chocolate whiskey.

  An hour later, we are making love.

  My love affair with both Sarah and whiskey has begun.

  It is the anniversary of my mother abandoning me. I smash a whisky bottle by throwing it against a glass table. Everything shatters. Nothing new.

  I am smashed, drunk out of my head, and Sarah is trying to keep me sitting up straight. I want to tell her I love her; but the words are all slurred.

  I suffer a pounding hangover, eyes blinded by the sun. Sarah closes the curtains. I want to tell her I love her; but it hurts to speak.

  Sarah is walking out of the clinic, holding her stomach. She cries as she confirms the miscarriage. I hold her close. I tell her I love her.

  Sarah is beaming, holding the pregnancy kit in her hands and telling me it shows positive. Five minutes later I am sat terrified at the thought of becoming a father. Ten minutes later I am elated at the thought of becoming a father. One month later I am distraught when fatherhood is over.

  I am taking a phone call from a policeman, who tells me Sarah has died and that I must come to identify her body.

  I am at the hospital. Drunk.

  I am pushing Sarah and she falls down onto her stomach. The anger dissipates.

  I am filling up a tumbler of whiskey, past a single, past a double. Jack Daniels is my new best friend.

  I am swinging. I am smacking Sarah across the face for a reason I cannot recall moments later. Sarah is crying. Sarah is packing her things. Sarah is leaving. I tell her to never come back. I want to tell her I love her, but I can’t.