Through much dismay, I have decided to take my own life by throwing myself over the bridge before me. No longer do I contain my serum, and terrible memories, the anxiety of dark rooms, behind each corner… it is all too much for me, and no longer, without the soothing nature of my morphine, will I continue. Beside my point of leaping, I am leaving my story for those who investigate my death, for in life, no soul understood the truth of my horrific experience, and I hope, dearly, that the splat of my being will punctuate the continuation of that awful decrepit creature which inhabited my college room.
It was the summer of my senior year of highschool. I graduated with honors; a far away college accepted me and I had arrived with my luggage in arm, nervous to meet my adult colleagues. It was named FairWay College. My conservative parents were suspicious, they had never heard of this school, and threatened to withhold their approval, recommending me to attend a catholic conservatory near our home town. I would have other family attending the conservatory as well, two cousins. But after pleading, my mother saw how much leaving meant to me, and they conceded, on the promise that I call the family once a week.
FairWay was two states from the boondocks I called home, in a city called Fenelton. It took my father and I two an’ half days to drive all the way there. My mother never learned, didn’t desire to either. When we arrived, my father kept quiet, hiding his scrutiny for the colenctic young people behind his thick brows, rubbing his beard between quick jokes to my mother.
The school focused on social science, queer rights, gender therory. The city it was planted into 150 years ago hung rainbow flags on the light posts during october, the people there participated in marches year round to fight for minority rights. There was even a naked bike ride through the city, where hundreds of brave people gathered, unclothed, adorned in bright flashy decorations, Christmas lights, body paint. It was a very body positive event, even if a majority of the population didn’t participate, everyone celebrated, or at the very least, were happily surprised by the events. The city was the country’s leading proponent for liberation amongst minority groups, producing many brave figures. Proud to be apart, I was nervous on my own, excited to form myself without any influence from my traditional parents, and interested in the adventures which youthful spontaneity could only create.
After the campus tour, we all sat silently in the car for a moment like raising heat, resting. The school was paved partly with new asphalt, there were quaint exposures of the past, old and dilapidated stretches of uneven brick which the tour took to show each of the campus’s old-world buildings. My father turned the car off, the parking lot smelled of oil, the air hung thick in our van. Tired, I laid my head onto the window, worried that I may not fit in with the expressive peoples who attended this school. My father wrapped around the front seat to face me. My mother followed suit in the passenger.
He let out a low, long sigh through his bumpy nose, studying the shine of my shoes, “Your mother and I worry about you staying here. How do I say this… the people around here…” My father was having trouble using one word: Gay.
But my mother was not shy, “Baby,” she began, relieving my father with a rub on his back, “I don’t think this is a place of God. Daddy and I’ve been looking around, and we talked about it, and we’re worried about leaving you around this stuff. It’ll infect you, baby.”
My father, feeling more emboldened, spoke up, “ The city ain't a place for kids to grow, it gives ya funny ideas of what’s right in this world.”
Mother’s voice transitioned to a softer tone, the one she used when I was too sick to go to school and she would rub her hand across my warm forehead, telling me to just rest. But this time, she was using it to manipulate me, “are you sure you don’t want to go to that college near home? We’d be able to see you a whole lot more than if you were here.”
My initial experience of the school was pleasant; my professors were cordgal, as were the students. The grounds were attached to the city in such a way to provide an overwhelming number of adorable cafes to study in. The city itself was dashing. There was a central river which glissined at dawn, dividing the city in two. It was my favorite part, always captivating, day or night, but, I will say, at dusk, when the sun falls just below the city’s surrounding valley walls. The water shimmers, its surface unstill, and like bits of magic, the city reflects perfectly upon the increasingly inky river.
Stars twinkle there too, the whole galaxy reflects before me while I stand atop one of the many bridges stretching across the water.
I managed to obtain housing in the upper east-side from a homeowner who rented out their upstairs to students during the academic year. They were nice, quiet, and often travelled for weeks at a time for work. The home itself was well furnished with pieces from Africa, Asia, and Italy. Their late wife was, “a world traveler who only settled in the grave”. The owner told me, in a nostalgic low tone, that my room was once a nursery, and then their child’s room, and finally, a guest room, which kept them company in their lonelier years, “ya’ll also water my plants and feed Paddy”, they said smiling. Although frail looking, in need of a cane to walk, the owner travelled often as a reporter, focusing heavily on the rising population of Nazis in the United States. They always carried a notebook in their breast-pocket, a small pencil between their sprouting ears.
The guest room was larger than the one I shared at home, and was painted a lovely sky-blue which imbued the space with a sense of serenity. It had a personal bathroom attached to the farthest wall on the right, and a walk-in closet embedded into the same wall as the entryway. In addition, the owner arranged the furniture expertly; a queen sized bed dressed with a crimson comforter and three orange pillows; a bay window beyond its quaint, natural looking headboard, gave sight to a sea of city lights, redlights travelling away on the bridge.
In the week before classes began, I took to decorating and personalizing my room with pictures of family and friends, arranged my desk in the corner, filled the bookshelf with textbooks and the semester’s expected readings. The main segment of my room was clean and ready for the year, and so it came to unpacking my clothes into the closet. I hung my shirts, put my folded jeans up, and realized, with my hands resting on my hips, that in no way could I fill the closet with my clothes, and in fact, due to my minimal material existence, the whole of my belongings could reside in the closet comfortably. Furthermore, while arranging my closet, I came upon something that years of horror movies had stricken with a sinister foreboding presence; in the far corner near the ceiling, on the top shelf in farthest reaches of the closet, a box remained, labeled, ‘Christmas decorations’, and to avoid inconsistency in my organization, I moved the box, which revealed a closed hatch to a room above my own.
Surprised, I took solace in the above room’s enclosure, but the idea remained in the back of my mind of something taking solitude there, hidden away, perhaps waiting for a moment of vulnerability to crawl forth sinisterly into my room. In those moments, reason prevailed, and I assumed that the room was for maintenance, a crawl space full to the brim with wire, or plumbing for my personal bathroom. My ignorance of general housing construction let me ignore my fear, and replace it with uneasy wonder. The hatch served to be great conversational material while conversing with my new friends. One person in particular; a man named Danie.
Danie charmed me. He was a sophomore, majoring in political science, hoping to one day change the United States for the better. We initially met at an after class study program. I overheard him discussing Food Deserts, and how they affect people all around us greatly, directly quoting a study done in my hometown. Between people surrounding him and his partner, I caught a glimpse of his handsome smile, the subtle black curl dangling before his browline. When the time came, I fished through the crowd encircling Danie and his discussion partner, and questioned him more over coffee. After coffee I insisted on showing him the hatch, as I needed a witness to confirm my unease. At that time, I took to placing a padlock on my closet’s door before I slept. How else am I to feel safe? He was taller than me, and I hoped to convince him to test the door’s openability.
We chatted briefly in my room before I showed him the object of my recent terror. He agreed that it was ominus, but remained cool-headed, unaffected on the surface, and explained how he too had a similar issue back home. In a week's time, we studied on the floor of my room, textbooks sprawled out every which way, I brought up a bag of chips to snack, and as a joke, Danie recommended we take our learning to the closet. Nervous but unwilling to reveal it, I laughed softly and smirked while thinking it over, then agreed. There was ample room for the two of us to lay like school kids, our legs bent up at the knee, feet dangling, and even further, there was space for our bags and books. We forgot about the hatch, and soon we abandoned our books altogether, becoming lost in our personal thoughts. A lull took our conversation and awkwardly, I distracted myself, biting my lower-lip slightly while looking at him, waiting for something to happen.
“Can I kiss you?” He asked, eyes studying.
Shocked and embarrassed, a boy had never asked me this before, my parents would not approve. My thoughts raced, my body stuck in its position, paralyzed by an overwhelming tingle. I feared that I may desire him to kiss me, and that desire, by some unforeseen cause, would reach my family, who unfortunately, obtained the ability to halt my academic funding.
Logic prevailed- Danie and I were secluded, we had closed the closet doors when we entered, and the homeowner was gone to investigate a radicalized far-right group in Oregon. Why would I decline myself?
“Yes, please.” My words came out quiet as a whisper, but Danie understood each one and took hold of my hip, sliding me into him.
From then on, the phone calls I had with my parents were full of little lies. They knew Danie as my best friend and local guide. They knew school was well and full of new excitement. I told them of only the surface of my life, and that satisfied them enough to remain academically focused with their questions. I was a good student but suffered in math all through lower education, and Danie being a kind Sats minor, tutored me. My parents appreciated it greatly. In the hours Danie and I spent together studying, I allowed him to kiss me and nothing further. I created entire fantasies around the cold touch of his hand on my bare side; he’d untucked my shirt, pinned me with his weight against the living room couch. I almost gave into him then. I had no reason not to allow him to ravage me right there, with no time to even fully remove my jeanes, nor his own. But a force within me shrivelled my excitement as his tongue traced behind my ear down my neck, ending with a kiss above my belly button. I froze, evacuated all further romance with a face that screamed desperately for him to stop.
Danie rose from between my legs, sitting himself comfortably at my feet, “Hey, don’t even worry about it. I’m not trying to pressure you.”
I crossed my arm, made myself small in the corner of the couch, “It’s not that I don’t want you to…”
And he reached over, grabbing my ankle, and unfurled me slightly from my protective shell, “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. These things take time, no need to rush. Sex is only fun when everyone’s in the game.”
I quickly made it home by foot before requesting Danie to stay over, all the while watching the sky become consumed by thick storm clouds. The news warned of a rare windstorm striking the city, and it appeared to be true, for when I reached home, the wind had picked up dramatically, snapping large branches from trees, one crushing a car on my street and blocking all passage on the road.
I closed the windows as fast as I could, papers laid on the floor, the homeowner’s family photos hung crooked in the hall. I ran to my room and found my door forced closed by some interior pressure. I bonked my head on the door with the expectation it would open, verifying that it was indeed solid wood. Eventually, during a lull in the wind, I bursted into my room to find it thrashed. The closet doors were pushed inward, opposite to what their hinges allowed. Tree branches and piles of autumn leaves were blown all over my room, getting stuck between my mirror and the wall, under my bed, and finally, I found a trail of leaves, like bread crumbs, leading beneath my bathroom door. Leaves stuck out from the doors bottom and flapped to the subtle breeze funneling into the bathroom, a slight whistle in the wind.
I managed to seal the window and began to reassemble my room when Danie messaged me, ensuring I was safe. I responded and requested that he come by to protect me from the storm, to which he happily agreed. To our luck, he lived in the neighborhood, and could walk safely despite through the storm.
It wasn’t long till he blew in with the wind, a piece of fall tangled in his hair. I told him my roommate was out-- they had been gone for two weeks on another trip, stuck in europe due to airport closures. I had the house all to myself. I led Danie up the stairs, we exchanged small talk, a tension held between us, when, before reaching the stair’s climax, a tremendous clanging occurred above us, as if a great object fell to the floor. I edged close to Danie, looking at him silent, thoughts enamoured by the worst possible scenario transpiring. My skin tingled nervously, I noticed a cold all over.
I pulled at the edge of Danie’s sweater, “What was that?”
He grabbed my hand, aware of my anxiety, “I’m not sure; there’s huge a storm outside, I bet a branch knocked into the house.”
“Yeah,” I gazed down the hallway at my door, “You’re probably right”, and we went on. He tailed behind me, his hand in mine, and I pushed the door open with fanciful anticipation for my next few steps.
Danie noticed the mess left by the storm, “Wow, all this over an open window?”
I sat on my bed, legs folded, and nodded with a half smile, “If i'm honest, it was a lot worse before you came. This place was full of leaves. I think the tree in the backyard emptied its branches into my bathtub.” I thumbed behind me to my bathroom. Danie leaned on one foot and found wet leaves plastered to the shower’s light blue tile wall, clogging the exhaust window above it. “I left my window open and the bathroom window open and a wind tunnel formed and sent all the debris flying into my tub.” I laughed to myself; what a strange day it was.
He scratched his head, sat slowly beside me on the bed, “I hope my roommates closed the windows.”
“Ha! The leaves aren’t even the worst part,” I pointed Danie to my closet doors, splintered at the hinges, the left one hanging forward, completely detached from its top most fixings.
“That…” Danie looked confused, “was the wind?”
“I hope it was the wind,” I put my hand on Danies thigh, it drew his attention from the destruction. Nervous, I looked away from him, but only for a moment, for I mustered the strength to not merely look within his devilishly handsome brown-eyes, but to also reach a tender hand out to touch his chin, run it along his face. “Danie,” I began softly, “We’ve been seeing each other for a little bit now, and I know I'm fickle with my affection, you being too good to me all the while...” I had to breathe, I was beginning to ramble. Danie sat back on the bed, silent, allowing me to talk, a subtle, caring, smile warming his face.
I took hold of his hand, “I don’t know why this is so hard to say,” and came to a realization, “can I just show you? I think it’ll be easier for the both of us.”
His smile grew with approval and he kissed me, gently holding my neck, pressing us together. “I’d love to see what you mean.”
His words generated a great excitement within me. It sent my thoughts down a path unventured during the day. I found the scenery to be at first cold, a morning in the woods, dew covering the fana. I rose from my bed, his sturdy hands easing my legs' sudden wobble. I used his thighs, tight in my hands, to find balance.
Before him I posed, my hands resting upon my hips, my left buttock slightly sticking out.
He studied my body, resting on his back with his legs dangling off the bed. Again, that devilish smile taunted me, twisted my organs and wrecked my heart.
“Is this what you wanted to show me?” His question embarrassed me but I knew it was a joke. He was just pulling my leg like the boys back home, and like my mother said, “It’s always better to laugh too, no one likes a crier”.
I worried my freight would ruin the mood; our time was limited; everyone knows romance sours quickly, and so, with a breath, I slowly got onto my knees, face red, and took hold of his belt. Our gaze met, my mind went blank, “I was actually hoping I could suck your dick”, the words spilled out of me, from a reservoir hidden just above. And now, as I undid his buckle, and took him into my hand, tantalizing his growing head with the serpentine of my tongue, the thin veneer separating the sloshing emotion within me was penetrated at once, emptying the withheld contents satisfactorily upon my personality, drenching it forever.
I was lost in the coming entanglement Danie and I shared; the boy who my mother and father rose no longer walked beside them. That boy may have never been real. A ghost, or a shadow of me, but not the true me, for it was clear in those moments of pleasure that I had discovered something fundamental about myself, struck bedrock, took my very first breath in a world unfettered by the fleshy walls of my mother’s womb, unabashed by the weighty paternal leer. I was free to make the world my own.
But more than that, my body was taken to a place known only in the forgotten whispers which naughty dreams leave in their wake. The details… in my current condition while writing this… I feel they are too much for me to bear. Even what has been said is too much for my weak soul, but I could not omit those details without leaving my story unrendered before the reader, leaving my death and its cause lost in the streets and on the Sunday paper.
In the moments subsequent to Danie and I’s climax, we showered for a short period in the owner's bathroom, poking and grabbing each other's naked bodies all the while reading the strange soaps littered about the shower’s base and walls. And when we left the bathroom, towel-wrapped, we noticed my closet light was mysteriously on. Not only that, upon our skittish investigation into the closet, the ceiling hatch was open just a crack.
We took refuge on my bed, both looking incredulously at the closet.
Danie said, “Are we sure that light wasn’t on before we showered?”
I laughed, “that light was definitely off Danie.”
“And the door in the ceiling?”
I threw my head back in dread of what the open hatch meant, “oh, don’t remind me. I don’t even want to think about that right now.” I again laughed, but this time more subtle, as if to swallow my freight with jest, then looked to Danie with a sneer, “you know, with all those muscles and 6 inches you have on me, I say you’re the one who should check.”
Danie shook his head with half hearted acceptance, “check what?”
I pointed to the hatch in my closet, “the ceiling door.”
Danie studied his naked toes, scratched his cowlick. I could tell the idea of poking about the hatch scared him, but he wanted to spare me the sight of his fear, so he silently debated himself for some time before looking at me with a smile, as if to show me this was all a childish game. What was there to be scared of?
“You’re lucky I like you,” he said, “you got a stepladder or something?”
“I…” I bit the tip of my thumb, “I don’t. But I bet you’re tall enough to reach it. I can give you a lift.”
With a deep breath Danie popped off the bed, his towel falling to his ankles revealing his nakedness, and, unashamed, he took a heroic pose for me, flexing his muscles, running off into the lit closet. I dashed to the other side of my bed to peer at him, catching him leap athletically into the hole part way, fetching its sides for grip, and squirming himself completely.
“Holy shit!” Danie cried, then a great crash came from above. All was quiet. I waited, nervous, confused about my next steps. “Danie?” I sheepishly asked into the closet from bed, too afraid to leave its safety. “Danie?”
As if nothing, Danie spoke smoothly to me from above, “you need to come see this, quick! I’ll help you up, here’s my hand, take it,” and down came his limp arm, wagging as if manipulated from the meat of the upper shoulder. The hand was dead, it didn’t bekon me close as one would expect. It was uncanny, off putting to say the least, but I couldn’t perceive the forthcoming horrors, and so began to encroach to the edge of my bed to gain a better look, when blood began to run down the arm, being caught in the thick black forearm hairs, dripping from his middle finger. In a rush reality stuck me and I screamed, clutching my cheeks. The arm fell from the hatch, then the other arm, then his chest and legs, and finally like a cherry atop Danie’s separated body, his head was dropped onto the pile.
I fled from my bed in a scramble, sounds, horrific and inhuman emanated from the hatch, my foot became entangled in the sheets and I fell to the floor. With a shake of earth, the creature from above landed atop Danie’s body, knocking his head rolling beside my own. His eyes, bloodshot, afraid, they begged me to bring him back, to wish his mother goodbye, his father a farewell. A top Danie’s body, the creature stood hunched, its teeth protruding, sharp and blackened from decay. There were no eyes nor any indents in its pale flesh which would house them, but it inhaled deeply and often from independently opening and closing slits upon its face. It had a punchy belly, bloated and sagged to earth. And instead of seeking me as I struggled on the floor, the demonic being sat its boney rear on Danie’s leaking chest, taking up an arm from the pile, and devouring it handfirst. I undid my foot and dashed for the door.
Once I burst into the wind stricken street, still nude, marked with streaks of love across my body, I banged on a neighbor's door, a quaint octogenarian who, while surprised by my state, nonetheless provided me with a blanket and hot cup of tea while I contacted the police.
Due to the storm, they were delayed for a few hours, which meant I had ample time to explain every detail to the kind neighbor. They tucked me into the couch when I was through, when all my story became was psychotic unterances, unexpected fits of tears with an equally sporadic resolution. When the police arrived, they told the neighbor of their investigation, how they believed, tucked away on the couch was not a victim, but a brutal murderer. They told them I was a cannibal.
With wide-eyes, the neighbor agreed, “this guys crazy- he told me there was a monster in his ceiling”.
I spent ten years in prison for the murder of Danie Paladorny. As far as the police were concerned, there was no creature living above my room; I killed him. Who else was there? All of my DNA was on Danie, no one else’s. I was the only one there. That week's call to my parents was behind bars.
While in prison, the knowledge of the creature’s continuation haunted me like a bad dream; no sleep, sweaty nights clutching my pillow hoping for morning to come. I was turned onto my serum, the thing which allowed my life to go on for so long after the event, by a rather fidgety prisoner, who wore suspicious eyes, a down turned face. I would have ended things much sooner if it were not for my morphine’s numbing properties, for the anguish of my encircling memories, Danie’s begging, dead eyes, his agaped mouth, forever screaming, made life unbearable. Food was plain. Not even the sight of my parents brought me joy while sober; my father unable to look me in the eye; All my mother could say was that she knew sending me to that school was a bad idea. While in my serum’s spell, I used my time in prison to pontificate my story’s validity to the public. I attempted to reach out to my friends at school, hoping they’d utilize their understanding of my natural placidity, my passivity, but, most importantly, they’d keep Danie and I’s relationship a continued secret, no matter how hard some might press them. Alas, there was little interest in my tragedy, all those friends of mine flew away, and I was let out a scruffy man to my aging parents with the assumption of guilt. They seemed to pity me.
As time went, my morphine’s magic waned in strength, allowing my awareness of the creature's existence to crawl once again to my mind’s focus.
My time is limited, it knows where I live and will find me soon, there is no doubt in my mind. And it is for this that I am taking my life, leaping from this bridge here. If weather permits, the story I write will be held down by this brick till someone investigates my death. But I see rain clouds ahead.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
