they say the owl was a baker's daughter: four existential noirs

by KUBOA

  I got a giddy sensation, something akin to how I’d felt the few times in my life I’d been caught out at something wrong, dead caught, nothing to do but sink in it. I figured he’d left the door to thirteen unlocked, again.

  I nodded and nodded, for a moment got no further than that.

  I could open it. At this point it wouldn’t matter. Open it, call out Ginette’s name.

  If she was there?

  Then I’d look an idiot, duck into my room, wait for the inevitable knock from her, the police, the stitch mouthed man—but I’d be past it, the worm out of my skull.

  If she didn’t?

  I pressed the button to open the door, was ten paces down, just hearing it sliding shut when I took a bolt step, hard, accidentally bit my tongue, turned, staggering without needing to, exaggerating the pain of the hurt to my mouth, didn’t catch the door but hit the button to get it open before it could move off.

  I hit the button to every floor, in descending sequence, floor sixteen down to the lobby.

  As I walked toward thirteen, it was against a churn in my stomach, sickness and tension that the trick wouldn’t work. But it would. I didn’t believe it, so I’d just pretend that I knew it would. It wouldn’t take long enough that he’d decide to use the stairs, and even if he did, that took just as long. Likely, he’d fold the clothes if he was already just sitting down there.

  My shadow coughed on the door front, covered the number, a blunt slurp of the saliva I’d let collect nearly dribbled over my lip.

  I touched my hand to the knob, waiting for any resistance from anywhere. A last click, cramp to my legs—someone else could’ve shown up, those wet footprints in the lobby, anything, anyone, anywhere, anything, anything.

  -I shouldered into the door, saying quite flatly Ginette?

  ***

  The television was on, flicking half asleep grey toward the drawn curtains, curtains two layers of gauze, green and something else, in the dim it was hard to tell. It was light enough to see that no one else was there, and this was reinforced by the knocks I made to the walls, the kitchen counter when I crept in.

  Oddly, I felt comfortable in the kitchen, in my dragging head I almost felt I should just lean there, have some water.

  I noticed, numbly, a bit irritated it took me so long to focus, to get anxious again, a bag from the drug store, slightly crumpled on the counter next to some various mail. It contained a box of condoms. I held the box, staring, turning it over a few times, narrow eyed. The receipt showed that this’d been the only purchase.

  Jittery, now, a surge through me, coming to my senses and feeling the close of time, I made my way haphazard around the apartment.

  Nothing to indicate that a man lived there. The photographs, what few there were, seemed to be of Ginette, some of her girlfriends, family. I ducked into the bathroom, no sign of shaving razor, only one toothbrush, only soaps that seemed feminine, and the particular dinginess to the place wasn’t thick like a man’s, was just there, present, like it was kept generally straight so that a bit of dishevelment didn’t matter.

  Like my apartment, it was one bedroom, so I imagined the bedroom would be where some sign of a male inhabitant might be.

  Not touching for the light switch, I took the two paces down the squat hall, touched to the bedroom handle, felt it turn, but when I gave pressure forward, it didn’t budge. I stepped back to have a better look, saw the two heavy padlocks in place, the odd, excessively screwed to place mountings forced into the blunt of the wall.

  ***

  I’d struck my flat palm to the door a few times when it occurred to me that even if someone was in the room, they couldn’t open the door.

  I started to say Ginette, but my stomach lurched, bored into itself, I doubled over with the cramp and felt bile up my throat. Doing my best to keep it in, I moved my hands to cover my face, but despite this, a burst, I vomited, felt the thick and hot of it in my nose, took an awkward step backward, eyes soaked from the effort, coughed freely, hard, uncontrollably, another blurt of liquid and muted solid spraying like a sneeze as I turned my head.

  Breaths like jabs up my ribs, I swiped at a thick string of saliva that strung from me as I got to the door, to the corridor—another sharp singe, headache, I coughed violent, saw a slop of grime hit the lower part of the corridor wall, the carpet.

  I squirmed back into my apartment, crying, dropped forward and, not thinking, put my face to the inside of my raising elbow like to stop a sneeze, hissed more vomit, breathed it in, swallowed wrong.

  A moment or two later, I was at the toilet, fast to place, vomiting thoughtlessly, intense pain up my neck, pressure at the sides of my head. I couldn’t think, felt a grinding behind my eyes, teeth to concrete, the eyes themselves felt rung flat and dry, crisps wrapped in wet cloths.

  The vomiting passed. I could tell all at once it was over and done, but I stayed where I was, more and more aware of how much I was crying.

  I pulled a folded bath towel from off of the tank of the toilet, rubbed my face dry with it, got to the mirror and glared at myself. The residuals of the cramps teased me, made my body feel like a fallen asleep foot. I gritted my teeth, spread my lips to see the grimace, but a layer of phlegm, paste brown, covered the opening, a sour little gauze.

  ***

  On my way to the kitchen, I saw that I’d taken the bag with the condoms from thirteen, the rumpled plastic sullied in odd lines with my filth. I set the bag on the counter, opened the refrigerator for something with a taste, the water and antiseptic wash not ridding my throat of the feeling of sicking up, glanced at the stove where I saw the little red light indicating the oven was still on. I shut off the dials, drank half a bottle of limeade down, regretting it immediately, a tightness to my bowels, the first lurking of my next cramp.

  I had shivers, but shook my head, getting the thermometer to place, sure I was somehow exaggerating matters, that I was not deathly ill, was just shaking from agitation and a rightful sense of panic that I seemed curiously to not be experiencing correctly.

  One hundred one degree fever.

  I hissed, not believing it, shook the thing down, cleansed it, reinserted it under my tongue.

  Already it seemed forever ago—being in thirteen, Ginette’s apartment, the padlocked bedroom. The same peculiar calm I’d felt in her kitchen was a mouth around me in my own, behind my door, away away away away away away.

  I muttered the word Away, touching my forehead when the thermometer again read one hundred one.

  Like a handclap, it occurred to me that he must have keys to the room in order to’ve gathered the laundry. I’d no idea why I cared or what this proved, but connecting him to that door, connecting him to that door being fastened tight seemed appropriate.

  But no. It wasn’t even true.

  I deflated.

  I wanted not to care, or to settle on something, anyway. I was delirious, but couldn’t be, my fever was even lessening if the thermometer was to bet trusted.

  She could’ve left the laundry in the hamper for him to do, asked it as a favor of him, fair exchange for letting him stay the night or whatever.

  No, I protested, pointless, already agreeing with myself, agreeing my own argument against myself.

  -You’re right you’re right, I said, wet hand over my sore face, a single hiccup, painful, causing my eyes to shut.

  ***

  The odd reverie passed, an abrupt change, I crumpled, thinking that I needed to leave the apartment.

  What was he going to think when he got up with the folded laundry?

  I’d vomited all over my neighbor’s apartment, it seemed silly to remember, but it was true. Actually, I didn’t exactly remember it, had no image of the trail I’d left, but knew I’d vomited on the door, the carpet, in the corridor, everyplace.

  Leaving wasn’t going to do anything about it, I said. Then stopped, empty of thought again, not doubting the corr
ectness of what I’d said, but also not seeing the direction it should lead me.

  I turned out the few lights that were on, laid to the sofa, wrapped my face in my arm and kept my eyes open, made believe I could stare through me at the ceiling, liked the pressure of my arm on my vision.

  Why would the guy think I’d done it? And even if he thought it, what was he going to do about it?

  I became interested in this.

  What was he going to do about it? Call the police?

  I moved my arm, let it limp over the couch side. Any normal person would call the police, there’d been someone in the apartment and the apartment was not even his.

  I started to sit up, but the pressure behind my forehead pitched up so violently it was as though I’d struck something. Lowering, I let myself relax completely, could feel the bulbs of pulse at my fingertips, at my throat, in my ears.

  I couldn’t really hold any thought, my drowsiness returned, the word Drowsy making me wonder if I should take more medicine, if the vomiting cleared out of me what had been bringing my fever down.

  I had my one hand pincered around my forehead, forcing thumb and middle finger down to both my temples when I thought I felt something scraggle, crawl up onto my side from the cushion. An image of the missing insect, I bolted up, gritting eyes closed against the pain, was to my feet, rubbing myself, slapping, backpedaled, hit my bookshelf, tried to get balance, slumped to the wall, involuntarily bristled, could feel the hissing of air out of my skin. Wheezed and growled for however long.

  Then got control. Breathed.

  ***

  I decided on taking a few more ibuprofen pills and another dose of the cold medicine, though this was difficult to choke down, brought up the thick of my upset stomach, made me smell me on my breath.

  If he called the police, there would be no reason I’d have to answer the door, of course, but it seemed better that I be away from the apartment, entirely.

  I thought about cleaning up any traces of vomit from my own apartment, but certainly the guy telling the police that he suspected me, writing this on a scrap or a torn napkin, wouldn’t be enough that they’d be allowed to enter my apartment. They’d have to wait for me to come back or else wait for me to wake up.

  -So, I muttered, there was no reason to leave.

  Regardless, the guy would now know what was going on, there was no way around that.

  I strained to listen, but didn’t guess he was back from the laundry room, something would’ve already occurred if that were the case.

  Idiot, I considered there might be time to clean up his apartment, or the corridor at least, but I’d get caught out at either of those things.

  I simply had to wait.

  Why padlock a room? I suddenly asked aloud, why double padlock a room?

  They’d seemed so dead and heavy, the locks, like animals damp and strung from fence slats.

  Why would Ginette have padlocks, obviously self installed, on her bedroom door?

  It made no sense.

  I just lolled around and around, sticking what I considered the pieces of some puzzle randomly this way, randomly that, a lullaby focus to it, a meandering no place.

  Why would this man install locks? Install more than one hard lock?

  If someone wants someone out of their room, they get a thick latch, sure, they don’t trust the flimsy door locks, want something a bit extra, that’s all true. Locks like the one in thirteen, though, those are always meant to keep something inside, always, or at least much more than they’re meant to make the outside stay out.

  ***

  From the sofa, again, I heard the shush of him getting to the door, thirteen open, thirteen close. The dull clack of the door shutting through my wall spread thin and final in the dark, felt the same thing as the dark. Distanced, my eyes were lolling in my head, mind as much concerned with fleeting thoughts of television programs as anything else.

  The dark made it worse, I felt indelibly nowhere, nothing to do with anything.

  I listened and listened, got up, moved slowly, pointlessly slowly, to the kitchen, got out a plastic drinking glass, crept back to the parlour, put it against the wall.

  Nothing.

  I smiled, in the dark the smile just a noise, a breath down my nose, didn’t even know if a plastic glass to the wall really worked—I suspected it did, in principle, but really had no idea what part of thirteen my ear was up to.

  I was startled by the glass hitting the top of my foot, snorted, my knees catching stiff, shook my face, carefully tapped around until I felt the glass, knelt to pick it up, just left it, moved back to the sofa.

  He must’ve noticed it all by now. I didn’t really know, but it seemed it’d been ten minutes. Even had he overlooked it, been caught up thinking, everyone has a look around enough to notice such disarray, it’s instinct, more than even automatic. He certainly would’ve checked the door locks.

  So what was he doing?

  I stared at the wall.

  How would he call the police?

  If he had a cellular telephone, I supposed he could text message them, but that seemed peculiar.

  What else?

  Dial the number—emergency or nonemergency—hit keys to cause beeps until the dispatcher got the idea the caller was mute or hearing impaired or something?

  Just leave the phone off the hook, I suppose, I said, but that didn’t seem appropriate, would just be a weird thing to have to do.

  A moment later, I heard the thuds at my front door, insistent, definite.

  I made a bubble of my spit pop on my lip, waited the interval, heard five more thuds thud thud thud thud thud fast.

  ***

  Some period of time passed, two minutes, five minutes, with me standing in the dark, eyes adjusted as well as they could be, enough to make out the fixtures familiar to me, the knocks coming quite regularly.

  He hadn’t called the police, I thought, then thought he may well have, then thought if he had he wouldn’t be forcing this confrontation.

  But what did he want?

  Not to talk, I probably whispered to myself, wanting to see the expression on his face.

  The knocks were too direct to even consider it was just a passing idea to him that I’d been behind it, there was a trail of vomit from there to here.

  I heard the door knob touched, heard it turn, a wave of nausea clambering all over me, like feet scraping in my gut, slipping, catching, slipping, catching, and a shiver of dizziness up my neck.

  The knob had turned all the way and had been let go, snapped back. He’d be looking down at it, wondering if my bolt was to place, my chain, even as I wondered that, unable to remember, slinking into my bedroom, closing the door most of the way, face creaked into what I’d left open.

  He entered the apartment, not making much secret about it. I heard him running his hands along the wall, slapping his palms, finding out the light switch, just the dull brown bulb above him coming on.

  He was making odd gurgles, a purring, deep breathing behind his shut face.

  I saw that the kitchen light went on, heard his feet, in shoes, on the tile, back and forth, looking, shuffling, a long breath out his nose ending in a pinch.

  I swallowed at the sound of the drugstore bag crinkling open, being closed in a hand, the condoms stuffed into his pocket.

  He used something, one of the dirty drinking glasses, to make five knocks on the counter, then a strange sound I couldn’t understand, like a mewling, a whine, something a dog might make if kicked in its sleep.

  ***

  I backed up toward my bureau, leaned on it, head heavy, chin buoying in pats against my chest. I was letting my nose stuff up from not wanting to snort in, accidentally make some whistling sound, my mouth was getting bloated with breath and spit just left there unswallowed.

  There was a little bit more sound of him shuffling around, touching some things, gett
ing my name from the mail left around, probably, then I could hear his feet on the carpet.

  Then nothing.

  Nothing. Nothing.

  Then it was as though he pounded his foot four five six seven times on the carpet in one spot, stamping like an animal, trying to echo me out, get me to scurry.

  I knelt, unplugging the clock radio, gripping it in both hands, moved in the direction of the door.

  I heard the overhead fan in the bathroom go on, off, noted the slight change to the carpet of the light switch being hit, pulled my bedroom door shut, almost locked it, then just took a step back.

  As soon as he started with the knob, I stepped forward, gripped my end, pulled fast toward myself, tensed abruptly, pushed forward to cause him to stumble, pulled the door open forcefully, staggered two or three odd stutter steps and brought the clock hard into his face, the clock jarring from my fingers, ears aching from the jolt up my arms. I gripped his head, thumbs in his ears, battering the base of his skull against the door frame. Doing this, again, three times, quickly, until he slacked and dumped to the floor.

  He was groaning, writhing slowly on his back, bucking oddly for air, face squirming to the side, cheek to the carpet.

  I brought the heel of my foot down on his chest. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. He hardly seemed to resist.

  Lightheaded from the effort, I sneezed, ears ringing, then got to my front door, locking it, testing that it was locked in compulsive rattles and tugs.

  I started moving as though for the parlour, as though for the telephone, stopped, not knowing why I’d do that, checked the front door again.

  Then trembling, senseless, I took a step back toward the bathroom and stopped, a slap, looking down. The remains of the insect were mashed into my carpet, a rancid, wet little blot, the damp flattened into the fibers from how many times he’d struck down his foot to the thing.

  ***

  I just stood, knuckle of my bent thumb softly chewed by my front teeth, looking at the wall vent, listening to the odd snoring he was making, clogged snorts, an odd warble to the hiss of air through his nose and the churn like wet rocks inside him.