Paranoiac (2 page)

Upon further inspection I found a
duffel bag. It was obviously mine, one of my many conglomerate
bought commodities. It contained nothing but toiletries and a few
days worth of clothing; nothing of interest. My bag wasn’t hiding
any deep dark secrets or clues that led to any wonderful
conclusions to how I got here. I quickly changed my clothes and
decided to freshen up a bit before exploring the rest of the
house.

I casually walked out of my room at
the end of the long hallway and down towards the bathroom. I
noticed that a rug was missing from the wood floor but then again
it had been years since I’d been here. (Maybe it was tossed aside
or moved downstairs?) I walked slowly down the hall noticing small
differences in the corridor, how the walls were now painted a dark
red with a cream colored trim rather than the dark and light blue
hues with the white trim it had once been. I actually kind of liked
it better this way; it gave the paintings on the wall a more
alluring charm. The soft yellow bulbs gave the hallway a relaxing
feel to it.

I looked out of the windows leading
towards the bathroom and realized that, although the inside of this
home has changed the outside was still the same. Large oak trees,
old fountains and the circular, gravel-peppered driveway that was
directly in front of the house. How old was this house? Come to
think of it, I guess I never cared. But I must admit it seemed like
this vacation home was growing on me. Maybe because it didn’t
resemble the ugly monster it had been in my childhood. I stood in
front of the large, curtained window for a long while just
day-dreaming and staring out into the forest. I noticed that there
were several cars in the driveway. “So I’m not alone,” I muttered
to myself hoping that someone could explain why I was
here.

I tore myself away from the window and
entered the spacious bathroom with its large mirror, marbled
counter-tops and its giant bath tub. My boots made soft squeaking
noises on the marble-tiled floor as I approached the mirror. I just
stood there staring at my reflection. I looked terrible. My olive
green eyes had deep, purple hued bags under them; dirt smudges were
all across my face, which was pale in color. My thin lips were
cracked and dry and my shaggy auburn hair was matted across my
forehead. I looked fifty years old rather than thirty. I must have
had a great night. Immediately I approached the sink and washed my
face with hot water, scrubbing the dirt off of my cheeks and
forehead.

After throwing some water
in my hair, I wiped away the fog on the mirror and was utterly
shocked by my reflection. The terrifying white skinned man in my
dreams was staring back at me. He looked almost exactly like me but
he had a cruel, unforgiving look in his eyes. I frantically rubbed
my eyes and wiped away at the mirror in a panic. When I looked back
at my reflection the illusion was gone, it was my own image once
more. That ghastly face had left me trembling. “It’s all in your
head, this house just has you spooked is all,” I said trying to
reclaim my composure. After having a dream as lucid as last nights,
who can blame me for being so frightened? (
Other than myself of course.)

Journal Entry Two

I finished grooming myself and tossed
the toiletries back into my room. I decided to take the house apart
piece by piece until I found whatever I was looking for. But what
the hell am I looking for? Is there a mystery or am I just going
mad? Surely that is the reason why I am dictating all of this in
such great pointless detail. I would feel moronic if all of my
worries amounted to nothing but a night of heavy drinking with old
friends.

I pulled myself out of thought long
enough to account for five doors. If I remember correctly two of
those doors only lead to closets. Walking briskly and impatiently I
move down the mellow hallway and approached the first door. It was
slightly ajar. I peeked into the room and suddenly heard movement.
I promptly pushed the door open to find nothing. It was merely an
open window, the wind lazily tossing the curtains about. The room
had a twin bed and a dresser with a large, empty frame where a
mirror used to be.

I closed the window and headed to the
next four doors finding two linen closets and two more plain rooms
both with empty frames where mirrors used to be. One of the rooms
had obviously been recently used. The bed was a mess and several of
the dresser drawers were pulled open. Whoever was in this room had
left in a big hurry or was extremely sloppy. I felt like a
detective standing here scribbling all of my findings and thoughts
inside of this cheap journal. I only had two more floors to
investigate, the upstairs and the ground level. Hopefully I find
something soon before I become bored of all of this and just
leave.

Then my prayers and wishful thinking
were answered. I found a dusty bottle of scotch on the oak night
stand next to the disheveled bed. I picked it up and grinned as I
wiped off the dust and took a big gulp. “UGH!” I loudly grunted as
I forced myself to swallow the extremely cheap liquor. I cleared my
throat as the liquid fire seared my esophagus and then warmed my
chest. Better than nothing, I figured. And what kind of writer
would I be without a lovely drinking habit? Oh, the irony, being
the son of a terrible alcoholic only to become a writer whose main
inspiration is the bottle. Why couldn’t I pick up a more
interesting habit? Like a heroin addiction or a problem with
prostitutes? At least then I would have much better things to write
about instead of fantasy stories based on my angst ridden
past.

I found the old wooden stair case that
lead to the top floor and immediately realized that the large
Oriental rug was missing from these stairs as well. A rectangular
square of dust was the only clue to its existence. It is very odd
indeed. I continued my way upstairs and found a much smaller
hallway with only two bedrooms and a bathroom. I walked near the
first room, stopping quickly and looked through the giant bay
windows across from the two rooms. The windows gave me a great view
of the property, including the gardens and the giant pool that had
a slide and a small, stone waterfall. I gazed out the window with a
glassy look in my eyes, noticing how the entire property was
drowning in fog. It seemed to have a life of its own – hiding in
the woods watching, waiting from a distance to drag me into the
abyss kicking and screaming.

Taking a small gulp of my engine
degreaser, I was suddenly struck with an old childhood memory. I
remembered how much this top floor made my skin crawl, how I hated
this place. Late at night, I would come up these stairs to see my
father staring out of the windows, drunk and muttering to himself.
One night he had seen me spying on his drunken ramblings and had
started yelling at me, telling me how my mothers' inevitable death
was my fault. What father says things like that to his children? I
took a large terrible gulp of the scotch and realized I was whining
to an audience of one, myself. Why am I writing of such memories?
What can I say? You give a writer a pen and they won’t stop writing
until the bottle runs dry.

I yanked myself out of rotten memories
and began my search of the first room, turning the brass knob and
entered. This must have been one of my father’s rooms. It was
barren and plain. His rooms never had any character. They were
always very clean, proper and organized with very little
decoration. Even before my mother got sick my parents always had
separate bedrooms. I always thought it was strange that they didn’t
share a room. I never really gave it much thought. As a child, I
always figured it was a strange traditional practice. Then as I
grew older my mother grew sicker. I soon figured they were in
different rooms because they were separated; only staying together
to raise me or because they didn’t know what to do without each
other. Even though my father, Charles, was an awful bastard he did
love my mother and took care of her every need. Although, he did
love a great amount of women besides my mother as well. Which might
explain the separate rooms after all. I left my fathers' vanilla
room and made my way over to the second.

I hesitantly opened the
creaky, wooden door and again my mind was jabbed with painful
memories.
This room was my
mothers
. I studied the room
with its four poster bed, draped with fabric that was covered in
white, green and pink floral patterns. I neglected to remember my
mothers' obsession with mirrors. Not only was her room covered in
them but the entire house had at least two in each room and
hallway. Her room had dozens of small circular mirrors framed in
silver or bronze. The dresser had a giant, silver framed mirror
staring back at me.

Before my mother, Helena, got sick she
taught me how to play a game with the mirrors. We would lay
together in bed and pretend each mirror was a door to another
world. Each mirror was a window to a paradise even better than the
last. Then she got sick and she couldn’t play in paradise with me
anymore. The sicker she got the more she used the mirrors to escape
her pain, escaping to her own worlds without me. Just like I later
used them to escape my father and his awful abuse. Closing my eyes,
I can’t take it. I hated these mirrors now. Nasty flashes of
memories thundered behind my closed eyelids. Glimpses of my dying
mother, decrepit and staring back at me with pain in her eyes, the
smell of her literally rotting in bed. All of the mirrors in her
room gave me a different angle of her despair. All of our homes had
a room like this, her rooms.

As far back as I can remember my
mother had been this ill and my weak minded father drank himself to
sleep at night in response. His room's always next to hers so that
he could tend to her needs. He spent thousands of dollars on
pointless technology and artifacts that had no use but never did he
ever hire a caretaker for mother. He wouldn’t even let me help out.
He always blamed me for her incurable sickness. It doesn’t matter
anymore she’s gone and my Dad will be soon enough...

I opened my eyes. The hair on my arms
stood on end as I realized what was staring back at me in the
mirrors. It was him, that horrific doppelganger staring back at me.
He was in every mirror in this terrible room. I swooned, the room
spinning out of control. Was I drunk? I could hear his laughter.
Terrified as I was however, my anger triumphed over all. I began
screaming at the mirrors, at this horrible room. I tightened my
grip on the bottle of scotch and threw it as hard as I could at the
largest mirror in the room. It exploded and shattered gloriously,
sending hundreds of shards of broken glass and mirror mixed with
liquor across the room. I yelled in anger and he did nothing but
laugh and smile maniacally. Each mirror seemed to be off sync each
reflection moving at different intervals. While one smiled another
laughed or grinned widely. Even the broken shards on the ground had
tiny fractal versions of this terrible, ghastly, chuckling demon.
The laughter grew louder and louder as did my dizziness. I became
extremely off balance, my senses raped by the combination of bad
memories, booze and this terrible apparition that seemed to be out
for my sanity, or what was left of it.

I ran out of the room stark raving mad
and slammed the door so hard I could hear several more mirrors
breaking as they were knocked loose from the walls. Turning around
quickly, I'm hyperventilating. The room was still spinning and
everything was out of focus. I tried to adjust my eyes in vain, my
vision blurring the more I tried. I saw shadows moving across the
room and in my drunken, terrified ramblings I called out, “Molly!
Is that you?” Molly? Who was that? Why was I calling her name? I
suddenly felt a cooling relief shivering up my back. A relief that
I might not be alone. I sunk to the floor and was taken away by a
wave of darkness calling me. Selfishly I let myself sink into a
deep sleep. The name Molly swam in my mind before I blacked out,
drifting into the darkness.

This time I had no
dreams
.

Journal Entry Three

Again I woke up in a haze, laid out on
the floor in front of my mother’s room. The warmth of the afternoon
sun on my face was comforting. My mind wandered to the last
thoughts I had before I slipped into that drunken, raving coma. I
had called out the name of a woman, Molly. Who was this Molly
person? I sat for a good while searching the deepest vaults of my
memory banks and came up with no answer. “The scotch probably
killed too many brain cells,” I muttered aloud. I rested on the
floor, collecting my wits, waiting for the cramped hallway to stop
spinning. Did all of that just happen? Was it all just a dream
conjured up from the rotten, wickedness of this house, influenced
by all of the bad memories that are intertwined and soaked into its
very foundation? It was probably more likely and less dramatic that
it was the cheap scotch I had greedily poured down my gullet. That,
combined with my stress and dementia.