Paranoiac (10 page)

If
you’re smart you’ll run from here. Drive as fast you can back into
that delusional existence of yours.

But if you want to face the truth and find your answers, you
know where to find me.

The already
tiny shed started to shrink around me. I couldn’t breathe. My god I
can’t breathe! Everything was spinning out of control. It was too
overwhelming. It went on and on and on and on and on. He didn’t
know shit about me! He doesn’t know what I’ve been through and he
really doesn’t know shit about Molly! The nerve of this deceiver.
He lies and lies trying to drive me insane. I was crazed and
furious at this moronic maniac, pacing back and forth again, the
world around me still shrinking. The shed was still spinning out of
control. I was seeing flashes of Molly repeatedly. I wanted to
disappear, to escape from everything. Why didn’t I leave when I had
the chance? How does that bastard know so much about me, my past
and present? None of this makes any sense and the world around me
is falling apart.

The spinning
slowed to a sudden stop. The inside of the shed went back to its
normal size. Dropping to my knees, I vomited all over the floor. I
was so nauseous and tired of whatever all of this was. I just
wanted to stop existing, to, in the blink of an eye, fade from
history. The smell of sick filled the shed and I sat there
lamenting on a loop. I was a mess of snot, tears and bile. My brain
just couldn’t comprehend the letter. Every time I tried to focus on
the gritty details my mind would draw a blank. The solutions were
standing right in front of me but I kept looking right past them.
My mind was stretched too far is all, at least that’s what I kept
telling myself.

Spitting out
the bile that stagnated inside my mouth, I stood up and grabbed
some new clothes off the workbench. I took off my shirt and wiped
crudely at the filth clinging to my face and torso. Rubbing at my
skin angrily and compulsively, it chaffed raw but I took pleasure
in the stinging pain.

The shed was
quiet and thanks to me it smelled of something sour and awful.
Feeling numb I stood in front of a tool covered wall and put on a
fresh olive-green button up shirt. There were dozens of
immaculately organized tools pinned to the wall. The amount of
obsessive compulsive disorder oozing from these walls were
incalculable. There were white taped markings that traced around
the hanging tools. Each gismo had its own special place that it
belonged to.

What was a
little strange was that there were tools missing. The empty spaces
traced vaguely with tape stood out like a sore thumb. If the person
who organized this was such a clean freak, why didn’t he put his
tools back after using them? I looked around the shed and realized
for the first time that this place was trashed. Drawers and cabinet
doors were flung open and trash was everywhere. Everything seemed
out of place but then again I had never spent any time in this
shed. It could have always looked like this. I’ve become so
paranoid of my surroundings I turn everything around me into
another mystery or awful crime scene. Lowering my head, I sighed. I
felt the weight of the past few hours on my shoulders, leaving me
feeling cold and my mouth filled the taste of sick.

I looked down
and noticed I was still holding my foul, rancid shirt. Only it
wasn’t my shirt at all. It was a dress, a beautiful powder blue
sundress. Or rather it used to be a pretty dress. It was torn,
covered in grime and spotted with stains. I thought back on that
small college party. The party where I embarrassed myself
shamelessly. She was a wearing a dress similar to this one that
night or maybe it’s the same one. What is this? I don’t understand.
What’s going on? My hands were shaking and I was taking quick
panicky breaths. The world almost started spinning again but it
stayed still when I smelled perfume. I jerked my body towards the
door in time to see someone run off. My first thought was that it
was the intruder who had previously been taunting me until I heard
girlish laughter. It wasn’t hard to guess whose laughter it
was

Before I even
realized it I was chasing after her, leaving my duffle bag behind.
Everything felt so surreal. She was right in front of me but she
was a blur that I couldn’t quite focus on. She was still laughing,
it was playful yet menacing. I kept calling out her name but I
couldn’t hear my own voice. My lips moved, my vocal cords strained
under the weight of her name but not a sound could be heard. All I
could hear was my feet sloshing through the wet yard as I followed
her echoing laughter. I heard a door slam as I slid around the
corner of the house and into the garden. Dodging around a few
statues, I jogged past the pool and beamed for the freshly slammed
door. Without missing a beat I flung the door open and ran through
the threshold.

Stunned,
frozen by my environs, I tripped through what seemed to be the
living room. I knew for a fact that the door I had opened should
have led to the sunroom’s kitchen. The smell of household cleaners
was much stronger than before. I was terrified and befuddled. This
was absolutely impossible. None of this made any goddamn sense.
Clumsily I stumbled over the neat piles of trash and clutter that
were stacked around the room. I was a panting, panicky mess. “This
is so fucked up!” I screamed out but again nothing could be heard.
I couldn’t tell if it was the noxious fumes or my consternation,
but I instantly felt nauseous and dizzy.

Journal Entry Seventeen

Laughter spun
me around to meet a young woman in a blue dress, standing in the
hallway. I couldn’t make out her face. Every time I tried to focus
on her features I would feel sick and cold pin pricks of pain would
scratch at the back of my neck. “You’re the one who is fucked up,
dear little Isaac.” Just hearing her sweet voice sent shivers up my
spine. “Mo-Molly?” I tried to whimper out, reaching for her. To my
dismay my voice was still just as silent, even more pathetic than
my intended whimpering. Tears ran down my cheeks as she ran down
the pitch-black hallway.

I slipped
around the floor, my wet shoes squeaking as I chased her down the
dark corridor. The hallway went on and on and on. I could still
hear her running and giggling in front of me. Why wouldn’t she stop
and talk to me? Was she conniving with this mysterious jackass? It
wasn’t enough for her to embarrass and treat me like her little
brother. Molly knows the power she has over me and isn’t afraid use
it.

The laughter was getting further and further away. It felt
like I was running down a
never-ending
tunnel
.
As I ran and ran little paper squares started to speckle the walls
and floors. I couldn’t help myself, slowing down to a stop to stare
at the walls. Each paper square had a name. I counted nine names in
total. Most of the notes had Molly scrawled across them in that
beautiful cursive. Her name was the only one that mattered.
Unconsciously I started tearing them down, grabbing at as many as I
could fit into my clenched, scratched hands. I didn’t know why I
was doing it. It didn’t even feel like I was the one yanking them
down. I was out of my body yet beside myself with anger. The notes
were endless. I snatched and tore and plucked at them but there was
no end. It was as if the walls had been built with the small square
notes.

I
couldn’t handle these notes anymore. Seeing her name shoved into my
face over and over again was too overwhelming. In a panic I took
off running and slipped awkwardly across the sticky-note encrusted
floor. It felt like I
was tumbling down
the rabbit hole, uncertain of what was up and what was down. Then
to make things worse the humming in my ears started to become
unbearable.
The
buzzing grew louder and more piercing as I stumbled through the
thicket of yellow squares. Flashes of blood glinted in the dark
corridor. It was as if images were being projected on those thick,
dark shadows. I tried to close my eyes but the piercing, ringing
noise got louder every time I tried. I refused to focus on to the
horrid images projected on to the shadows, so I just
ran.

The harder my
feet pounded on the ground the heavier the pressure in my head got.
The pain was nagging at me, it’s all I could think about. The
ringing in my ears ascended and expanded. I was deaf to the world
around me and that world was a hellish nightmare. I just ran. I ran
and ran and ran until finally there was a door. Slowing to a stop,
my head was still throbbing and buzzing. I turned around and there
in front of me was another door. Or was it the same door? I can’t
trust any of this anymore. This was all so confusing. Stunned and
paralyzed I was incapable of making any decisions. I just didn’t
know what to do.

I turned back
and forth unable to decide which door to take. It felt like I was
caught in a pointless loop of indecision. Although, for some reason
I knew that both doors would lead to me to the same place. Both
doors led to somewhere I didn’t want to be. The only emotion I
could feel was fear; nothing but pure terror. The longer I stood
avoiding which door to choose the harsher the high pitched tone
escalated. I closed my eyes and picked at random before I could
pass out from it all. The door clicked as I flung it open and
blindly passed across its threshold. I kept my eyes shut until the
door behind me slammed on its’ own.

I jumped,
startled by the echoing boom. The ringing in my ears and the
unbearable pressure in my skull subsided the second I opened my
eyes. I was in the house’s main kitchen and it was much, much
brighter than that nightmarish hallway. Turning around and I saw
that the door I had entered from was gone. I pressed my hand
against the stucco and dry wall where the door had once been. It
was warm and gave off a low vibration. I stood motionless for a
while with my hand on the filled frame, just trying to figure it
all out.

Finally I
moved on and started to carefully walk around the kitchen. It was
clean, immaculately so. It contrasted so completely compared to how
it looked earlier. The pizza boxes, chip bags, liquor bottles, red
cups and other miscellaneous bits of trash were nowhere in sight.
The trash bags were empty too. And the air was so thick with the
scent if bleach, along with other pungent cleaning products. I
didn’t like this. It was all too strange. My mind stabbed with
questions even though I knew none of this was rational. The only
thing I could do was blame it on the intruder but who can really
blame someone for cleaning? To my surprise the bright kitchen
window started to darken. I looked out the giant window near the
breakfast table and the world seemed to fade out of existence.
Eventually it was pitch-black again. No moon, no stars and no
lights. Even though there were no lights on in the spacious kitchen
and the cheerful morning sky been had swallowed by a void, I could
still see. Some type of eerie, bluish-green amorous light was
ambiently illuminating the kitchen.

Journal Entry Eighteen

Everything was
so quiet now. There were no electrical clicking or humming of the
refrigerator. Nor the old creaking of wood or window shades
shifting from a slight draft. There was nothing. I tried to fill
the room with my voice but I was still mute. It felt like another
world, like some sort of purgatory.

My footsteps
were as silent as my voice while I walked over to the cabinets. I
opened a drawer and it didn’t make a sound. Then I slammed it shut
as hard as I could, with the same result. Crazed, I started running
from cabinet to drawer throwing out glass cups and ceramic
dinnerware. They shattered beautifully into a million pieces across
the floor. This wasn’t out of anger or frustration but out of
desperation. I did it out of morbid curiosity. I did it because
this silence was impossible.