I shut my door.
It was like lifting a weight. Or maybe it was more like relieving stress with a nice massage. Not that I’ve ever gotten one before. Or, perhaps more like turning a room into a decompression chamber. Not like I’ve ever been in…
Well, anyway. I was safe now. From everything. Everything else, that is.
I stared into what I called my room. Four blank walls stared back. A window, poorly covered by a cheap blackout shade, stood out against the white walls. The contrast bothered me, and made me grit my teeth together. I shut the light off.
There. Now everything was dark. The afternoon light struggled to penetrate the elementary barrier that was a sheet of black paper. My eyes adjusted ever so slightly to the darkness, simplifying the contents of my room into blurred outlines. I listed them one by one in my head. A desk, covered in dust and half-finished projects. A desktop computer. A hamper, with clothes littering the floor. A mattress, flush with the right corner of the room. An electric piano, neglected for years. A laptop, once utilized often and productively, sitting on the floor. Two foldable chairs, one for me, one for…
I looked around. It’s okay! There’s plenty of things to do here. Plenty of things to occupy myself with before tomorrow.
I know! Maybe I could finish some drawings? I’ve always wanted to get better, and with my recent interests, it would benefit me to practice some art.
I unfolded one of the two chairs, and sat at my desk, full of crumpled papers and scattered art supplies, messily covering a keyboard and cluttering the monitor in front of me. I pushed the keyboard to the side and moved the monitor back, creating ample art space. I wasn’t ever really that good at drawing, but I did enough to be better than the people who definitely weren’t good at drawing! Even though it’s mean to think things like that, it made me feel better about myself. I did what I could to feel better about myself.
A piece of blank paper sat in front of me. I wondered what to draw. I’ve heard of good artists who, to practice, simply drew the things around them. I looked around. It was dark. I could only make out blurred outlines and shapes. Well, it’s not like I can turn the light on. My eyes were drawn to a piece of crumpled paper next to me.
Of course! I’ll just try to improve on what I’ve been working on before.
I took the piece of crumpled paper, and began unwrapping it. A shape appeared before me. A circle, drawn many times over. The curves of lead seemed to oscillate and distort on the page. It was as if a child, struggling to stay within the lines of a coloring book, frustratedly colored in the same section over, and over, and over, and over again. I stared at the blank paper in front of me for what must have been a few minutes. I put my pencil down.
Ah, that’s alright. I can work on it another time. There are other things to do.
I booted up my desktop, genuinely excited for this one. I was learning how to code! In the past, I had played a lot of video games, and I always thought I had good ideas for making one. I finally took the first step and followed some videos online to try to learn— and it went well! I was able to make a button that makes a number increase if you click it.
A bright screen in front of me lit up the room. I frowned, and looked around. A lot more things were lit up now. Well, that’s okay. Screens do that. As long as I look at the screen, everything behind it is dark. I brought up the last video I was watching, and tried my best to follow along. The man in the video made jokes, laughed, and frequently stopped to note that certain sections were confusing. It wasn’t pleasant. This is serious. I really want to learn this; I wish he would take me seriously. I don’t mind if it’s confusing.
Frustrated, I closed the video, running the program I made the other day. A familiar button greeted me.
“Hello, button.” I said out loud. I made myself smile. How silly, talking to a button on a monitor.
I clicked it many times, so many times in fact, that I got it to 7. Sometimes it took a couple clicks to increase the counter. I was happy and excited at the progress I had made. I had never made it to 7 before.
After 7, however, it started going backwards. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. 0. -1…
I frowned. Maybe I’m not cut out for this after all. I shut off my computer, shrouding the room in darkness once again. I’d find something else to do.
I got up from my chair, and began to walk towards the piano. It had been a long time since—
My sudden weightlessness interrupted my thought. I was falling. I attempted to slow the fall with my arms, only slightly too late, causing me to fall face first on the floor. Ouch. My nose and body throbbed, as I struggled to get up. I really hated feeling pain. I got angry. What could have caused such a sudden fall?
My eyes fell on the culprit. Pants stuck halfway under the bed. My foot must have gotten caught in the loop. I quickly grabbed them, livid, wanting to punish them for hurting me. They quivered in my hands, awaiting discipline. I cursed them for not being in the hamper. If I had only put this specific pair of pants in the hamper, I wouldn’t have fallen today. As I was about to drop them in the hamper, a thought came to my head.
Were these dirty or clean? And was my hamper dirty or clean? I looked around at all the clothes littering the floor. Surely those were dirty. But what if they weren’t, and the hamper was dirty? And pants, in some situations, can be worn multiple times. Were these pants clean? Unsure, I dropped them on the floor, and kicked them into the corner.
There. That way it won’t trip me again.
My body turned towards the piano. Maybe— maybe I shouldn’t today. It’s probably upset at me. Upset that it hasn’t been played in years. I was never really as good as I wanted to be anyway. What could I do after all this time? I’d disappoint it. It would be disrespectful to play it when I’m not as good as I was.
I made a mental note to only play the piano when I’m as good as I used to be.
What to do then?
I fell onto my mattress, staring up. A sturdy looking nail lodged into the ceiling drywall caught my attention. It was bent, as if significant weight had warped it. I… really needed to get that removed.
Maybe… This wasn’t so bad. Maybe, just maybe, I could just go to sleep. That way, I could just skip to tomorrow, and try everything again.
Oh, but I’m not really tired. I can’t really go to sleep like this…
Maybe…
A familiar shadow skittered and rolled around in my peripheral. It passed through here every now and then. A round circle of pulsing dark, and a shiny beak. Two white, beady eyes of static looked directly at me.
It spoke.
Its voice crackled like raging fire, unintelligible, as it presented it’s sharp beak to me, holding it over my wrist.
I had thought about it before, many times. But because of—
It— it meant I couldn’t ever do that. I would be afraid to. If someone sees them, they might want to help me. And I don’t need help; really. I can deal with it myself. I don’t need any of those people, ever again. I’m fine alone, seriously. I’m better off. I know I can handle being alone, and I know they can’t. So I’d rather them be together, and me alone, than to try and justify my mistakes. I don’t need to justify my mistakes. They are unjustifiable. No one has to worry about them anymore but me.
Besides, I really hated feeling pain. I could never do that. I’m too weak.
Hesitating, I reached out towards the shadow with a waving open hand, declining the offer. It disappointingly skittered along, leaving a familiar picture frame, face down, next to me. My heart sank, and I began to breathe heavily. I slowly reached towards it; it was something I thought I had gotten rid of— something I had tried to move past. A date in permanent marker was written on the back, with a little heart.
“5/25/2017”
The date had meant nothing for a while now. Years of history erased in an instant; a cruel reminder of mortality and its suddenness. A cruel reminder of who is to blame.
I turned the picture frame over.
Empty.
That— that’s right. I had gotten rid of it.
I turned over and fell back into my bed. I let the shadows of the four corners of the ceiling slowly close my eyes for me. I think I—
I think I wanted to just fade away. Even if it’s only for a moment. Close my eyes, forget everything and everyone. Lose my being, and just bask in becoming one with surrounding darkness. I think I would be content with that kind of existence. Free from the weight of others. Free from the weight of myself. Of all.
I see two white, beady eyes of static staring at me from the pitch black ceiling. This is a different one. It’s so tall it has to bend its body so as not to burst through the roof. It takes me away. It helps me fade away. It’ll lower itself towards me, gradually getting closer, gradually darkening the familiar room around me until it’s a single shade of unpierceable dark. It’s cold, but not in an unforgiving and uncomfortable way. It’s cold in a way that is cathartic. Cold in a way that could freeze time itself. It’s silent. It’s still. It’s— it’s terrifying. Did I really want to fade away? Was that what I really wanted?
I shook my head, tearing apart the darkness that had just a moment before been encroaching my surroundings.
I needed to distract myself. I needed something to do. Something. Anything. What should I do? I frantically searched the room.
My laptop caught my attention with a passing glance. Back in university, I used to write a lot. Stories. I would write for myself, and I think it helped me. It’s the one thing I can say I was completely confident in. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an author. My parents, friends, and teachers tried to support me in that goal. But like all things, it faded away, until I got to university. I had some reignition of motivation, then.
Whenever I was going through something, I wrote. It helped me a lot, putting my thoughts into a story, my experiences. It was therapeutic, and deeply personal. I do wonder whatever happened to that.
I… I wish—
Part of me wants to feel that way again.
In a sudden burst of motivation that I did not take for granted, I crawled over to my laptop, opening the device slowly, dramatically, like a suitcase full of gold.
The blank screen contemplated me, compassionately, like an old friend, wanting to do everything they could to help.
I held the power button.
It was dead.
A slow, methodic creak interrupted the still room.
I closed my laptop slowly. Defeated. Shaking.
A folding chair, open, loomed over me. A blurry shadow hovered above it. Its form continuously shifted into familiar and unfamiliar shapes. Its head was crooked. Its neck snapped. It stared down at me, peering into my very being. Confronting me once again.
“What do you want to do now?” It asked.