aggressively, I run at it. As the hinges rip from the door, the sound of splitting wood is heard three times concurrently. The door kisses the ground hard. Now, I lie on the fallen door, and take a look around the room. Mattress across the wall’s my temporary solution. I can still hear the cursing and hissing continue behind one well-placed bed part. I throw the box-spring to the floor and scream desperately at the wall. I do the same with the mattress. I stand in the middle of the room. I scream for many seconds, then accusingly point at the East wall. I needn't think and I needn't breathe a word. This room shall pay penance say my eyes full of menace.
Unsure of my intentions, I stand perfectly still two feet before said wall. It is cursing. It exhibits the characteristics of the voices previously encountered, but it is much more ruthless. A coarse yell comes from all around. It makes me panic and I begin to regret my decision to accost. The East wall calls me a whore and the South wall, on my immediate left, calls me a bitch. The curses dissipate beneath a twisted barrage of whispers and laughs. I clench my right fist so tightly that it swells red, then quietly I say, "Whore". I assault the East wall. I am jabbing with as much force as I can gather and the only way I will stop, is if my hand breaks while asserting this ugly shade of beige. I begin ranting, "I hate you wall. Why must you torture me? Straighten out and fly right, you're a fucking wall! You're a fucking wall!" Out of breath and in quite a bit of pain, I am suddenly overtaken by my own hysterical laughter. I kneel to the ground, as I laugh so hard that I begin to tear. Then, my ridiculous laughter is replaced by fear. I collapse onto broken pieces of wood that once formed a door. I cry as I look up at the molested wall. I cry, because I am searching for a resolution to a problem that I do not understand. It pains me to lose, especially to a wall.
Slowly, I get back on my knees. I am sobbing uncontrollably in this most sincere form of frustration. I have trouble catching breaths between wails; I tell myself to compose. This is accomplished leisurely. When I finally regain posture and degrade my affliction, I exit the room subordinately. Each footstep scars my pride. A piercing cry howls from the bathroom. Thoughtlessly, I rush towards it. The house falls silent. I stand in the bathroom doorway staring at a defaced mirror. Drawn in red lipstick, a new message awaits, "IT'S A WALL."
In man's most primitive years, simple tools were used to more efficiently accomplish tasks. I pace between the kitchen and the hallway. In an earlier fit of anger, I omitted rational thinking and favored a more carnal instinct. In doing so I denied my humanity. The result was less than desirable. I must embrace this humanity. In simpler terms, if I pull the baseball bat out of the television screen, I could use it as a tool to more easily dismantle the beige room. I run into the bathroom and put my broken fist through the matter-of-fact mirror. Loudly I declare, "It is a wall!" I begin laughing like a psychopath. I keep this up for two minutes. I laugh my way to the living room. I remove the bat from the thirty-two inch television tube. With this action comes more laughter.
What a godsend, I think to myself. I thought I was going crazy, but I wasn't at all. Sure, I could rub rocks together to make fire, but a lighter does the part much better. Now I am smiling ear to ear, and I feel as giddy as a promiscuous schoolgirl. With a baseball bat in my hand, I prepare to renovate.
The beige walls crumble beneath my steel sporting good. I hate love and I hate hate. I perspire violence. I have wide, angry eyes. I fall to the ground. I feel like I've fallen onto a bed. The sound of absolute silence is not as comforting as I may have hoped. Isn't this what I wanted? I force my eyes shut, then begin to count backwards from one-hundred. In minutes, I should be asleep.
"Negative two-hundred and nineteen," I say in a voice that has quickly lost character. My throat hurts from all the counting. Fortunately, this will not slow my countdown. A familiar, male, voice from an unknown place continues, "Two-hundred and twenty." I think to myself, congratulations he can count.
"You do know that you just snapped in thought at a voice with no source, don't you?" Says the voice with no source. He then expresses my own observation "It's very quiet in here." I think, yes, it is quiet... now. Now, I have properly disciplined the walls. Now, the mirror has been reduced to shards. Before I can think another thought, the voice retorts, "But what are you going to do about them?”
I look out the back window. Black, shadowy figures with jagged edges outlining half-transparent bodies occupy an unmanaged lawn. That lawn is mine. My fluttery eyes shift towards the lawn owned by the neighbor to the north. Then, I look at the lawn to the south. I've noticed that my neighbors do not have demons in their backyards. Lucky bastards. Of course, I can not leave the house now.
I've spent a great deal of time playing the aggressor with my insubordinate home. And now, it is quite obvious that beige walls and matter-of-fact mirrors are but black roses in a nightmarish landscape that must be the big picture.
Graphic images pollute my mind; was it clean to begin with? It's not matter. I think of the harm that demons may inflict. They could tear me up. They could entangle and quarter. My arms could detach long before my legs. I feel a demon's potential. I feel the helplessness that must accompany strangulation. For a moment, I can empathize with the tortured. I beg for death.
The voices will never stop. These demons will not secede. I am at the mercy of something that I did not know existed. Haunting shapes darken my, previously ignored, landscape. These figures continue making erratic and jerky movements. Their grace, or lack thereof, reminds me of a tree I once watched flail violently during a late, fall storm many years ago. It moved quickly. It moved like these demons.
I feel strong pressure surrounding my body. The presence of apparitions is enough to stop my heart. I feel paralyzed. There is a chance that they lack the ability to harm me. If this is the case, then I am a fool for my thoughts. However, clinging to that belief would be thrice as foolish. From some place that I have yet to defame, the new voice makes an obvious statement, "Those things look scary." Yes, they certainly do.
“In the name of Christ go away!” I learned this trick from a man that I admire. He had always told me the promises of the Christ, and I loved to believe them. “In the name of Christ go away!” The aggressive shadows evanesce. I never would have guessed that his name would protect me.
The voice comes back, “Why can’t you sleep?”
I don’t know the answer to that question. I am shaken, but I’m not too scared to sleep. I’m wide-eyed for some other reason. I address the voice, in a sincere manner, “Unidentified third party, I am too scared to sleep.”
Voice replies, “Well, you should be. The sort of insanity that you have participated in shall not be pardoned.”
As I throw my arms in the air, I contest, “I am not scared of this!” I spin around, while making physical suggestions at the walls, windows, and furniture. “This house, the demons, that deplorable beige room…” I pause and my jaw tightens. It becomes difficult to speak and for a moment I am hushed. With my teeth pushed hard together, I forcibly continue the list, “…lest not forget that fucking mirror! Still, this place has nothing on my dreams. I’ve seen storms much stronger than this.”
Assuredly, the voice rebuts, “Then, I will see you in your dreams.”
“You should be so lucky,” I retort disrespectfully.
Then, I hear the sound of absolutely nothing. The voice and the demons have gone away. The mirror and the beige room are no longer an issue. I close my eyes and I let my body hit the ground. Where I will go from here is worse than most things. Goodnight, house.
I awake in the middle of a tiny room; I must have traveled here in sleep. This room was one once capable of speech. Now it is mute. I laugh out loud at its' disposition. I make menacing faces, as I point at the reprehensible walls that surround me. I brush sheet-rock off my clothes and slowly step to my feet. I think I'll turn the couch back over and enjoy serenity recently denied. I hear a rustle. I strafe three steps left, and then I peek out the doorway. The couches have already been
reverted, and there is a man is sitting on the lengthier of the two. He moves his eyes from the shattered screen and encourages me to have a good morning. I ask him his name. His name is Jonathan Bertrand. I don't know what to say next... fortunately, he does.
"The door wasn't locked," he says. I turn and examine the front door. One of three windowpanes is covered with cardboard.
"Did you put cardboard on one of my window pane," I ask.
He nods his head.
"Why?"
"To keep the bugs out." Why must he do that? I've never had a bug problem. Jon continues in a matter-of-fact way, "Yes, in order to make it so your' door wasn't locked, I had no choice but to throw a brick through that middle window pane. See the brick. It’s right there behind the couch" He points at the object of conversation- It's right there, behind the couch.
"Yeah... so... what are you doing?"
"Oh, just sitting around. I bought beer. It's in the fridge." Jon raises his left arm while he extends an index finger. He points at the fridge. I help myself to a beer. Jon declares that this place is a mess. During the last couple of nights, impulse has gained seniority; tidiness has been nearly forgotten. Fortunately, Jonathan Bertrand has sharp eyes,
Storms Much Stronger and Other Woes Page 4
