Ruins of the Mind

by Jason Stadtlander

  The apartment was beautiful, with old but well cared for furniture that Lubie’s aunt had owned. Enormous bookcases lined the walls, and large windows looked out onto a deck that overlooked the park. Helen immediately stepped out onto it and looked out. The small deck itself was lined with plants, and it towered over the trees below. She could see the square sidewalk tiles at street level. Birds flew by, and a stray cat walked near a bench far below. Lubie stepped out and greeted her friend. “Well? What do you think?”

  “It’s beautiful. I could sit out here for hours.”

  “You are welcome to. We’d like to show you around the city tomorrow so rest today. We’ll make some dinner and then you can get a good night’s sleep.”

  Helen was sleeping in Lubie’s aunt’s old room that had a large king-size bed taking up much of the space as well as large armoires that covered one wall from floor to ceiling. There was also another deck off Helen’s room. “We don’t have AC here, so at night, I recommend you keep the door open and just put the curtain over it so you don’t get mosquitos in here.”

  “OK.”

  The quiet evening was very pleasant as Helen lay in the dark room. She could not hear traffic or ambulances or anything other than the wind and birds. It was very different from any other city environment she had ever experienced, completely peaceful and wonderful. In the moonlight, she watched as the wind softly blew the curtain and drifted off to sleep.

  She was awakened by a low screeching; her eyes flew open and she looked toward the doorway to the outside. A shadow appeared in it behind the curtain and then disappeared. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and her heart began to race. The screeching continued outside, and some bloodcurdling yelps followed. “It’s just a bird,” she whispered to herself. “A weird bird.”

  The shadow behind the curtain appeared once again, and then two white eyes were illuminated in the shadowy depth of the figure. Helen felt herself reaching a panic state, certain that this had to be a nightmare. She closed her eyes tight and reopened them. The only thing that remained was the moonlit curtain, blowing gently.

  She got up, walked across the wooden floor to the door and closed it. It lacked a lock, so she placed a chair up against it. Uncertain if she had imagined the whole thing, she quickly went back to bed and crawled under the covers, pulling them over her head. Concerned, but still exhausted, she began to drift back to sleep. Just before her mind was completely taken over, a gentle scratching and tapping startled her back to full consciousness. Screeech! The sound came from the closed door.

  Helen pulled the blanket down slowly from her face and saw the figure once again behind the closed door, still obscured by the curtain. Not real. There’s nothing there. She jumped up, grabbed the pillow and blanket and went to the living room, laying down on the couch and covering up. She felt like a schoolgirl, afraid of the boogie man. Helen had never had fears of the dark or had ever really been afraid of anything. She had ridden rollercoasters, gone bungee jumping and even went diving in underwater caves. Why was this chilling her to the bone so much?

  She did not recall falling back to sleep but awoke to the sun shining in her eyes, and she turned her head to look around the living room. Daniela stood still next to her, staring at her. Helen’s eyes widened. Daniela was madly sucking on her pacifier, which she pulled out with a pop, saying, “Biba!” before popping the pacifier back in.

  Confused, Helen looked around the room, seeing Lubie standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. “Biba,” Daniela said again, popping her rubber pacifier back into her mouth once more.

  “What the hell is Biba?” Helen asked.

  Lubie laughed and said, “It’s her pacifier. We call a pacifier a biba in Bulgarian.”

  “Oh.” Helen looked at Daniela and nodded, saying, “Yes, it is a biba.”

  Daniela turned to Lubie and giggled from behind the biba, tottering into the kitchen past her. “Was the bed not comfortable?” Lubie asked.

  Well, there was this creature with white eyes outside my window, staring at me. We don’t generally have that in the U.S., so I thought I’d let him take the bedroom instead of me. Embarrassed, Helen said, “My back was hurting. Probably from the flight. The couch was firmer.”

  “Well, if you need anything, let me know.”

  “Hey, did you hear anything strange last night?”

  “Strange? Like what?”

  “Like a screeching sound,” Helen replied.

  “No. Nothing at all like that. We had the door open in our room, too. Why?”

  “Never mind, I was probably imagining it.”

  “Well, feel free to freshen up. I made a banitsa, a traditional breakfast dish.” That was when Helen noticed the delicious aroma filling the room.

  “Sounds great.”

  The banitsa, a filo dough pastry with feta cheese wrapped inside, was indeed delicious. The pastry, along with some coffee, hit the spot and made Helen feel human again despite her rough night’s sleep. She had three helpings, and the four went off afterwards to see some of the sights in town, including the Monument of Liberty and some of the beautiful architecture. Helen truly began to feel rested and started to realize that she really had imagined everything the night before. She was chatting with Lubie and drinking coffee at an outside café while Georgi and Daniela ran a couple errands when something caught her eye—a man walking past the café not far from them. He wore a long black coat with a hood and walked slowly past three of the tables before pausing. Lubie saw Helen watching something intently and asked, “Helen? What are you looking at?”

  Helen nodded toward the man. “Him. What kind of a person wears a long black coat with a hood in the dead of summer?” she asked without taking her eyes off him.

  “Where? I don’t see anyone in a coat,” Lubie said, looking into the distance.

  “Right there!” Helen said, pointing at the man.

  Lubie looked at Helen with concern. “Helen, there’s no one there.”

  Helen looked at Lubie and then back at the man, who was indeed no longer there. “What the…”

  “There was someone that walked from there to there!” she said, pointing. At this point, two older women at a nearby table had stopped talking and were looking toward Helen due to her raised voice.

  “Helen, calm down. It’s okay. I don’t doubt you; I just didn’t see him.”

  Helen took a deep breath and sat back. “I’m…maybe I’m just tired. Seeing things.”

  “It’s understandable. You’ve been under a lot of stress and just got done traveling four thousand miles. Just rest. I’ll be right back.” Lubie got up and walked into the café.

  One of the women spoke to Helen in a thick Bulgarian accent, saying, “This man you saw. He had a long coat on?”

  “Yes!” Helen said, excited that she hadn’t imagined the whole thing. “You saw him too?”

  “No. But I have heard of people seeing this man you speak of. It is not a man; it is a creature called a talasum. When a person is buried on site during the construction of a building, that person rises as this creature to scare people away.” Helen’s face contorted into a disbelieving expression.

  The other woman at the table yelled at her companion in Bulgarian, hitting her on the arm. The first woman yelled back and then looked at Helen, saying, “She says they are old legends, but I tell you, they are real.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know,” the old woman said, holding up her finger, and the two got up and left quickly before Lubie could return.

  Helen sat looking around at the other patrons in the café, all of whom failed to even notice the conversation that had just transpired. You are going crazy, Helen. Those women weren’t there. Yet their little espresso cups and empty plates remained. She looked in the direction she had seen the man…no…maybe it was a woman. The person had been shorter, so it was possible it was a woman. Helen had just assumed it was a man. Lubie tapped her on the shoulder and handed her a small shot
glass. “What’s this?”

  “Rakia. It’s a Bulgarian brandy. It’ll help you relax.”

  Helen sipped the drink gently and relished the taste. It was delicious, and she quickly drank the rest. She certainly did feel more relaxed. “Why don’t we head back? You can take a nap. You had a rough night’s sleep,” Lubie stated.

  “Sounds good. Lubie, have you ever heard of a talasum?”

  Lubie stared at Helen for a moment and then asked, “Where did you hear that word?”

  “The old women that were sitting over there told me that this is what I saw.”

  “First, don’t listen to old Bulgarian women. They will drive you crazy. Second, you did not see a talasum; they are just a myth.”

  “Then why did you look at me like that when I just asked you?”

  “I…I don’t know. My aunt. She claimed for years that a talasum haunted her, that a child had died by falling into the construction site of the apartment building and used to show up. But it was nonsense. Just the ramblings of an old, lonely woman. Anytime she would bring up the talasum, we would just wave our hands and dismiss the whole conversation. In the end, she knew it was better not to bring it up.”

  “But what if it was real?” Helen asked.

  Lubie’s face grew angry. “It isn’t! There’s no such thing as a talasum.”

  Helen looked at Lubie, saw she had clearly struck a nerve and quickly decided to drop the topic. The two walked slowly through the park on the way back to the apartment building and talked about kids, statues, the Bulgarian government and food, anything but the talasum.

  The soft afternoon breeze blew through the doorway to the balcony as Helen lay on top of the covers, her eyes closed. It felt so much more peaceful than it did last night. She wasn’t sure why, but summer naps always seemed more restful than evening sleep. Helen could just barely hear a musician somewhere in the park as he played an accordion. She concentrated hard, trying to hear what the song was as she breathed in and out, drifting off into a deep sleep as she lay on her side, facing the balcony.

  A rattling noise near her in the room dragged her from unconsciousness, and for a moment, she kept her eyes closed, still in a half-awake state. She listened to the noise and could still hear the accordion player outside, eight stories below. The noise was subtle, like wood rattling or something falling, and then it would just stop. Then it hit her: Daniela was probably sitting on the floor playing with blocks of some sort. She smiled, her eyes still closed, and slowly opened them, expecting she would see Daniela, but she did not.

  A young boy with dark hair sat on the floor, facing away from her. He wore a plaid shirt with short sleeves and dark pants. Helen could see he was sitting cross-legged, playing with blocks. He stopped playing, sensing somehow that she was looking at him, and his head began to turn. As it did, Helen lifted her head off the pillow a bit to get a better look. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as his poor, smashed face came into view. One side looked dark and bloodied, and the other looked more or less normal. Helen felt a scream building up inside her, and he put his finger to his lips in a hush gesture. “Shhh,” she heard him say, but he did not talk out loud. It was almost as if he spoke from behind her ears inside her head, as if she had actually thought it all. Her scream choked in her throat.

  Helen stared at the boy, who could not have been more than six years old, uncertain what to do next, her heart racing. “Are you a good person or a bad person?” she heard him say, his lips unmoving. Helen was frozen. She wanted to move, needed to move, but could not.

  “Are you a good person or a bad person?” he repeated.

  She finally sat up. “I’m a good person. Are you OK?”

  “I was hurt,” the boy said as he turned back toward his blocks. “I was hurt bad.”

  “You’re not alive. Are you?”

  “Ani said I’m not. She said I’m trapped between this world and the next.” He turned toward her and asked, “Do you know where she is?”

  Helen shook her head gently. “No. I don’t know who Ani is.”

  The boy turned back. “She lives here. I haven’t seen her for a while.”

  That was when Helen realized that Ani must be Lubie’s aunt. “She…she died. A long time ago. six months ago, I believe.”

  “Oh,” the boy said, unsurprised, still playing.

  Helen thought that the conversation might be over until he continued, saying, “Ani taught me things. She was a good person. She said it must be why I chose her.”

  “What kind of things did she teach you?”

  “She said that there are good people and bad people. That good people would help me, but bad people might hurt me.”

  “Hurt you?” Helen was confused. How could anyone hurt a ghost? she thought.

  As if answering her mental question, he said, “She told me they would try to control me, do bad things to me.”

  Just as he finished his last two words, Lubie walked into the room. “Who are you talking…” She stopped in mid-sentence, seeing the boy sitting on the floor. He turned, his battered face in full view, and Lubie screamed a bloodcurdling scream. Suddenly, the boy started shrieking in both Helen and Lubie’s minds as his body grew large right before their eyes, his head impossibly extending out into a large face as he continued to scream. The entire room grew dark, and a blast of wind flew out the balcony door, causing the curtain to fly out at such a great speed that the curtain rod ripped from the bracket above and crashed to the floor. No sooner had the wind burst out the door than the light in the room returned to normal. The boy was gone and the shrieking stopped, Lubie’s continued scream paling in comparison to his. She finally stopped and stared at the exterior door.

  “You saw him?” Helen stated flatly.

  Lubie nodded. It took a good thirty seconds for her to break her silence, and she said, “I thought…I always thought my aunt was crazy.” She looked from the door to Helen. “I was beginning to think you were going crazy.” She looked at the door again and said, “It’s real.”

  “He’s real,” Helen said. “He says that he was friends with Ani. Is that your aunt?”

  Lubie’s hand went to her lips, covering her mouth, and she nodded, her eyes welling up as she spoke in a choked voice. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I doubted you. I’m sorry I doubted her.”

  “It’s okay. I would have doubted me. Hell, I was doubting me. Even just now, I thought I was imagining things until I realized you saw him, too.”

  “I don’t know what to say. I don’t understand why you saw it and I never did.”

  The two women left the building with Daniela to walk through the park and clear their heads. “I never believed in the old tales people told of ghosts and monsters. I mean, you just naturally think it’s all bullshit. The media has made all of this stuff out to be Hollywood-style stuff.”

  Two old men sat on a bench, their canes propping up their hands between their legs, watching as the two young women walked by with the carriage. Lubie glanced at one of them, and he reached out and grabbed her arm, saying, “Nameri go.” Then he let go. Lubie jerked her arm away and stopped dead in her tracks, staring at him. Both men were now looking at each other as if nothing had happened.

  “Kakvo kazahte?” she asked.

  The man that had spoken to her looked up at her, confused, and asked, “Nishto ne sam kazal, momiche?” He stared at her.

  Lubie looked at Helen, grabbed her arm and began walking away, Helen now pushing the stroller.

  “What the hell was all that about?” Helen asked.

  Lubie glanced back at the man, who was still staring at her. “He said ‘Find him,’ but when I asked him what he was talking about, he had no idea that he had even said anything.” She looked at Helen for confirmation. “He did say something, didn’t he?”

  Helen nodded. “This is nuts. We are doubting everything we are seeing and hearing now. Doubting our own sanity.” She looked down at Daniela, who was sound asleep.

  “I wonder if this boy,
this talasum, has always been visible to everyone, but he only chose to manifest himself to your aunt. And, if so, why your aunt?”

  “I need to talk to my mom. She might be able to make more sense of this. Ani is my mom’s sister.”

  An hour later the two sat on Lubie’s mother’s couch, drinking tea. Her mother’s apartment was quaint, well organized and tidy, everything appearing to have its own place. She was in her late seventies, dressed nice and had good stature and very thick glasses. Helen couldn’t understand anything Lubie’s mother said, nor could Lubie’s mother understand Helen, but they both clearly approved of each other.

  Georgi and Lubie’s father had taken Daniela out to the playground as the three women talked. Lubie spoke with her mother for what felt like an eternity to Helen. She so wished she knew even a little Bulgarian just so she could roughly understand what they were saying. Then Lubie brought up the topic that they had come to discuss, the one Bulgarian word that Helen did know, talasum. “Vidyah talasŭma na lelia.”

  Lubie said a few more sentences, and her mother’s face began to look ashen. Finally, her mother spoke, and Lubie looked as though she had been hit across the face. She turned to look at Helen, tears in her eyes. “What? What is it?” Helen asked.

  “I described how the boy looked to my mom, and she says it is a perfect description of my aunt’s son. I didn’t even know she had a son. He died when he was five. A car hit him out on the street. My mother says that the talasum possibly chose the appearance of my aunt’s son to make my aunt more comfortable. To communicate with her.”

  “Oh my god.”

  Her mother continued to speak and Lubie translated.

  “Mom says that Lelia had her son, Peter, in the 60s. Like I said, Peter passed away after a car hit him when he was five years old. Then two years ago, a year and a half before my aunt passed away, she finally told my mom that the talasum that had been coming to her all those years first came to her shortly after Peter’s death, and he looked like her son and spoke with her every night. He described falling into the elevator shaft when the building was being built, and my aunt even had someone look at the bottom of the shaft, but they never found him. My aunt told people that she and others in the building were being haunted by a talasum, but it chose to befriend only my aunt. It would howl or cry throughout the night at some neighbors, showing itself as a cat or dog, or it would slam things around inside the building, but it only ever appeared as a human to her. She told my mother that sometimes he appeared grotesque or like an old, rotting man to scare her…my aunt never told the rest of us the whole story.”