A tremendous amount of heavy thoughts troubled me that night. After leaving that prison glass where I worked a tedious 9 to 5 job, I needed to walk home. I took a deep breath, the stench of this city filling my nose. Rats the size of dogs scurried to safety inside metal trash bins or the sewers, junkies with their veins hanging from their arms barely held on to life, and I, a nobody, crumbled away under the weight of this monotonous, bleak life.
It didn’t bring me comfort thinking about tomorrow, no. Alarm, wake up tired, mutter bad words, drink coffee, eat breakfast, take cold shower, brush teeth, dress nicely, put on a fake smile, and things would be A-okay. Another day, another demise. One step closer to the end of the charade. What a spectacle! The crowd goes wild. Curtains fall. Lights out. Absolute silence.
“Watch where you’re going, asshole!” a madman from a car yelled at me. I stopped and realized I was in the middle of the street. The car had hit the brakes a few inches away from my legs. The man continued cussing and honked. “You wanna get yourself killed, dickhead? Move out the fucking way!”
I raised my hand and whispered sorry. He drove past me in a rush, the tires screeching violently. Lucky me.
I walked, the dark thoughts beginning to fog my mind again with each step I took. The air smelled like piss and rotten eggs. It made me feel sick to my stomach.
Time passed, and I became lost once again inside my head. After going where my feet took me, I found myself in a part of town I didn’t know. It seemed off-place, almost as if an unknown constructor took a part of a strange city and moved it here with its residents. Yet, the putrescence had not vanished.
I glanced around the tall, undulating buildings. They all looked abandoned and inhabited at the same time. Some of the apartments had the lights turned on, and behind each window, I could see a shadowy silhouette studying me with wonder. Hundreds of eyes inspecting me as if I didn’t belong there. Whenever I looked at one of the windows, the person inside waved at me. Slowly, left and right, left and right. They all looked like human clocks, counting each second in that place.
I wanted to turn back. But, instead, I glanced behind and saw that the street stretched out into the blackness, seemingly with no end. This place had me trapped there.
A maelstrom of fear and despair began taking shape inside my heart. The more I stayed there, the more it felt like nothing was what it seemed. The mystery of this side of town extended its black and slimy tentacles at me, trying to wrap around my sanity and squeeze it until it would suffocate and leave me utterly mad.
With extreme caution and heightened senses, I moved forward into the strip of blackness. The stars above stared at me with contempt and disgust. They blinked as if an invisible hand of doom clicked them on and off.
The fear inside my chest spread its tiny claws, trying to grab whatever it could find. It screamed as if it wanted to shatter my heart into a million little pieces. A heart made of obsidian, its sharp parts collapsing on the floor of my soul as if a morbid symphony creaked its tune for the end of the world.
Apart from the people in the windows waving at me, I had seen no one else. Not a single soul, not even a car moving, nothing. I walked for a few more minutes. Again, nothing moved, nothing breathed.
You’re trapped here, man. What the hell is going on? I whispered to myself.
I heard a buzzing sound growing louder as I approached a back alley. A man soiled in grease, wearing only a pair of black shorts, stood before an old TV set. I heard him muttering some words but didn’t understand what he said. At first, I was excited to see and hear from another fellow human being. However, he didn’t even acknowledge my presence as I approached him.
I stood for a few moments behind me as the TV hypnotized him.
“Yes, I am. Yes, I am. I am here. I am yours. Forever in your service, forever in your debt. You have made me what I am. Your child, your creation. You showed the true colors of this world. Master, I thank you for my life. Master, I will endure. I am nothing without you. My Master, My Lord, My God. I bow down to you forever,” he said, swaying to and fro like a puppet made of flesh and bone with no soul or mind.
“Hey, can you hear me?” I asked.
Nothing. He just repeated all those words over and over and over again. He chanted them like in a ritual. Then he stopped all of a sudden. He froze, his gaze still on the TV.
“No one is here. No, I didn’t betray you. Behind me? A man?” he said. I stepped back as the man rose and turned to face me.
He had static in his eyes. The buzzing was nauseating; behind all the crackling noise, a voice whispered terrible things to him. An evil agent that fed the poor man’s mind with toxic, infectious thoughts.
The man lunged at me. He grabbed my shoulders and squeezed hard. I froze as the static in his eyes grew louder. I didn’t feel in any danger, but the fear remained. Apart from his body, what he had inside was long gone and replaced with something artificial.
The supernatural was present in this man. An evil, powerful force twisted his mind and played with his soul until there was nothing. The puppeteer pulled the strings carefully until the man crumbled and served his master’s will.
“You need to go now. Master Leonardo is waiting for you. He will give you the gift of knowledge. He will make you see beyond the veil of human perception. Right where this world ends, you will feel extraordinary sensations. Yet, Master knows how to make it all work. He can tap into that world and make you see amazing things. Just go,” the man spoke like a robot. He lifted his right hand and pointed upwards on the street.
After my heart rate settled down, I looked at the end of the street. There I saw a flickering streetlight in front of what appeared to be an abandoned small house.
This, of course, felt unnatural to me. It seemed like that house had just manifested itself out of thin air. I was sure that in that place where only tall concrete apartment buildings seemed to exist—they felt more like prisons to me— a house would be the last thing anyone would build. Why would they? The whole scenery would suffocate it out of existence, infect it with the desolation of that place, and make it fade away and die.
The man returned to the TV set and began muttering the words in an unknown language. I walked the street until the end. Then, the flickering lamp post stopped working, and everything went pitch black. I heard the house creak and a door close shut. The lights turned on inside the house, and a tall silhouette stood behind the window. I couldn’t see who it was.
A purple light buzzed and made the house come to life. The words LEONARDO SORPRENDENTE’S BOUTIQUE OF WONDERS appeared on the roof.
The front door opened. The silhouette in the window waved its hand at me, then invited me over. I could make out a thin man wearing a top hat as I approached the house.
I entered, the entrance bell chimed, and a bubblegum smell permeated the air. The man looked at me with black eyes and greenish-yellow teeth as if he had brushed his teeth with radioactive toothpaste.
He stood there motionless and smiling. The ravenous smile that spread from ear to ear had to be the most frightening thing I had ever seen. He wore a purple and orange pinstripe suit that made me dizzy. His long black hair hung on his shoulders in wet strands as if he had just emerged from a long-forgotten underwater cave.
“Welcome to Leonardo Sorprendente’s Boutique of Wonders! You arrived just in time for our latest auction. Our lots this evening are of the rarest form, and I am sure you will be delighted to see them. Remember that all sales are final, and payments must be made at the end of the auction,” the man said.
In all this time, he didn’t move. Not even his lips moved when he talked. He stood there like a mannequin, and the voice came from a deep, dark place at the world’s end—his goddamn smile just never left his face.
“Where am I?” I asked. “What is this part of town, this place? What’s all of this? Who are you?”
“This place is hardly ever found by people. The lucky few here live happy lives and are cared for by me. I take care of everything and everyone. I am the master of this place you will call home. The man you met works for me. He is the only one allowed to roam the streets at night. You should have known that we have a curfew here. After 10 pm, no one is ever allowed outside except the Man with the TV. So that means you broke the only rule here,” the man with the funny suit said.
“What? What the hell’s going on?” I replied. My head spun around, and dizziness took hold of my body. Then, I heard the door lock by itself.
“Your unwillingness to follow the rules is infuriating. You will be punished accordingly, but first, you must participate in this auction. It is of the utmost importance that you do so”, the devil-man reiterated.
“Let me out of here. I want to leave,” I said. I tried to run for the door but couldn’t move.
“Stop resisting. You will not leave here if you continue disobeying what I say!” the man shouted. His voice deafened me. It felt like he threw broken shards of glass into my ear, making it bleed inside.
His arms suddenly extended toward me. Monstrous claws replaced his fingernails, and his once pale cancerous skin turned a dark gangrenous hue.
Like tentacles from hell, they grabbed my head and squeezed. I could feel the life flying away from me, and death’s cold embrace was the only logical outcome. The last thing I saw before my mind went black was his demented grin, but this time a bloody crimson hue painted over his face. The small rivers of blood that came from my eyes made me feel like some stigma in reverse.
I woke up in a glass tank, like a live human exhibit. The man sat behind an old mahogany desk. I regained my consciousness but couldn’t just open my eyes yet. The air reeked of incense, the heavy aroma making me sick to my stomach, even more than I already was.
Welcome to Bizzarro World.
I opened my eyes and saw the man standing behind an old mahogany desk. Black candles adorned the rims of the desk. The man hit the surface of the desk with a wooden hammer.
I screamed and banged against the glass. The man just looked at me with his enormous evil grin. His eyes told me that help wouldn’t come.
I saw a few empty chairs in front of me. This insanity kept growing like a tumor.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to this year’s auction!” he shouted, standing up.
Now, on the chairs, plastic mannequins appeared out of thin air. Some stood with their arms up, others seemed to worship their master, while I, captive inside my glass prison, watched all the events unfolding before me.
“As you can see, this year’s lot is this young man right here — our newest citizen is up to you to bid as you see fit. Starting at $10000!” the man shouted.
Nothing came from the room.
“$10001! Going once, going twice, and sold to myself! Hahahaha!” the man burst out laughing. “Welcome, young man, to your new home!”
The glass broke, and millions of tiny pieces hit my face and skin. The bleeding lacerations disfigured me. The man shattered my soul, an empty void now growing inside me. All faded to black. I woke up in a room with cracked walls and giant bugs walking around slowly. For a brief moment, I thought I heard a chainsaw-like noise. The bed was filthy, and water dripped in the mold-infested bathroom. It felt like a countdown to the end of my days. A dying rat convulsed in the corner of the room.
I exited the room and saw that I was in Apartment 23. The building felt deserted as I was the first and last tenant there. Descending the stairs of this hellish place, I managed to get out outside. A chair and TV guarded the night in the middle of the street.
“Sit down,” an ethereal voice instructed me. With no will left to live, I followed the order. I was too afraid not to comply.
This place sunk its teeth deep inside my heart, and its claws ripped the flesh off my bones.
I stood on the chair, watching the TV in all its static glory.
It feels good here. Maybe more people will move to this part of town.
It feels good to be home again.
Master, I will endure. I am nothing without you. My Master, My Lord, My God.