Vane C.
11-07-2010, 04:19 PM
This is a story I wrote yesterday night. Please write some thoughts about it!
1
07.43
A ray of golden sunlight awoke Richard Robbins.
What time was it?
He squinted at the digital clock, but discerned only a red blur. Dismissing the idea of locating his glasses as too troublesome at the moment, he let his head sink back onto the pillow.
Even though he had the feeling the morning was much younger than when he usually woke up, he didn’t feel tired at all; on the contrary, he was more alert than he had been in months… maybe even years?
The little gap in the curtains he had so negligently ignored last evening shone golden now, almost as if the morning sun had taken well care of the opportunity and shot Richard down with its brightest beams of light. Grunting noisily, he pulled the sheets over his face.
With a shock, he remembered the dream. The nightmare.
Well, it wasn’t just a nightmare. It was an odd nightmare; he couldn’t recall ever dreaming something similar.
He shuddered slightly as pictures of himself cutting deep wounds in his skin danced in front of his eyes. Sitting in a chair in a blank, featureless room, he wielded a sinuous knife. The walls were gray and… no, they were not walls, they were… they were just nothingness. They were not important. The only thing around was the chair and himself. And then he pushed the tip of the blade into his bare chest, making droplets of crimson blood run down his chest to form a little pool on his pot belly. Then he moved the knife, but he was no longer looking at it, because he knew he’d get it right – every last detail. He felt no pain.
Of course he hadn’t, because it was a dream, he reminded himself.
But what was it he knew he would get right? A pattern? On himself?
He felt a wave of goose bumps erupting all over his body at the thought of this.
He removed the sheets and felt the warming light wash away the pictures. He knew that it was a dream, fictional visions projected by his own, stupid mind and nothing more… but it was indeed a very weird – and unusually scary – nightmare. Mutilating himself? How repulsive.
Just let it go, he told himself. Just let it go.
23.18
Richard Robbins lay in his bed, troubled thoughts intervening with his attempts at relaxing. As the years had come and gone, the prospect of falling asleep had become more and more difficult. Luckily, he had developed a perfect cure for that; a whiskey and two beers before bedtime and he would go out as a candle in a storm. Only this time, he didn’t. As a matter of fact, he had drunk quite a lot of whiskey, because there was after all something troubling his mind.
His fussy thoughts strayed towards the memory of last night’s dreams. Could that be what was worrying him? The memory of the dream in which he maimed his own body?
No… that wasn’t it. There was something else. The dream was after all only a dream. What troubled him was… a feeling.
He turned restlessly in his bed, trying to clear his mind, but it would be more than an hour until he finally fell asleep.
The last resemblance of a thought his drunken mind spun before he passed out was that of an anxiety… or was it foreboding?
2
07.42
It was with a rumbling groan that Richard woke up. Right from the moment he regained consciousness one thought stood clearer in his head than any other; hangover. Cursing his own stupidity, he wondered for a short moment what day it was.
Sunday.
How many glasses of whiskey had he consumed? Come on, he hadn’t been this hung over since high school. Every single bone in his body seemed to ache, and his head threatened to explode, unless of course it already had.
Forcing his eyes open sent a fresh jolt of pain through his head. He groaned again.
Fumbling for his glasses, he sat up while trying not to smell his own breath. As soon as his vision was restored, he looked out through the gap in the curtains. No sun today.
The alarm clock told him that the morning was way too early to be enjoyed, but now that he was up he could very well stay up. He wasn’t tired anyway.
But dearly beloved God, what was this terrible ache? Had he rolled off the bed while asleep? Or had he bumped his head… no, his entire body… into something while being drunk yesterday? Had he really been that drunk?
Okay, let’s think.
He had downed two beers, as per usual, and then he had groped for the bottle of whiskey not entirely coincidentally placed on the table beside the couch. Since it had been Saturday, he had helped himself to a second one right after the first. And then a third. And perhaps there was a fourth, but that was it. Was that enough to make him as drunk as he remembered – or rather didn’t – himself to be? Or as hung over as he felt?
No.
“I’m getting old,” he finally concluded miserably in his lonesomeness.
He set off towards the bathroom, intent on brushing the reeking stench from his mouth. He also had to take a piss, but that could wait a few more minutes.
As he entered the bathroom and saw himself in the mirror, he forgot both of these things. The sight that welcomed him was… gruesome. Behind his glasses stared a swollen and bruised face – a face he barely recognized as his own. For many long moments he stared and stared at himself, entirely dumbfounded. What the hell had happened? It was as if he had participated in the worst bar brawl imaginable.
And then, as he slowly started to accept that what he saw actually was himself, and that that maimed face really was his own, he also began to remember.
The ashen void surrounding him was once again strangely unintelligible and nonessential. The chair underneath him… no, it was not there anymore… he had risen to his feet. The drawing was done. The drawing on his chest, cut with the knife he had now dropped to the floor… which really wasn’t a floor, but a substance of… he couldn’t quite put his finger on it… it was not important. The important thing was that he had regrets. Many regrets. He had completed the drawing exactly as he had planned… every detail simply… perfect. But now what? It wouldn’t disappear – it was stuck there. How would he get rid of it? Was he gonna have to make another drawing? But it hurt so much. But maybe… on something else?
What was that? Anger? Damn stupid, it was, that he always did things he’d later regret! ****! It would all have to be redone.
Now he walked up to the wall... yes, now there was a wall... gray, distant and cold... and nonessential... but it was there. And he head-butted it. First with his forehead, then with his entire face. He felt how his skin cracked and saw through swelling eyes how his blood was splattered all over the wall. But it was alright – he had to punish himself so come next time he felt he’d go and do something stupid, he just might as ****ing well remember not to!
He snapped out of his remembrance and shook his head maniacally.
“IT WAS A DREAM!” he roared at his own reflection whose swollen eyes were brimming with tears. “A DREAM! A DREAM!”
And then he drew one deep breath, and calmed down a little. He futilely tried to wrap his head around what the hell was going on, but it just wasn’t possible. No, no, what had happened was that he had sleepwalked and stumbled on some stupid thing and fell onto the floor… landing on his head.
Of course!
Of course!
01.11
The bottle formerly filled with whiskey now lay overturned and empty on the couch. Richard himself sat slouched beside it, his thick and wheezy breathing interspersed with heavy sighs. He had spent the day zipping whiskey, smoking cigarettes and listening to his own increasingly drunken hiccoughs as he had tried to wrap his head around what had happened. It was from sheer fright that he hadn’t already passed out, but he could now feel the alcohol working on his last line of defense. Soon he would have to succumb to his weariness and face the nightmares that presumably awaited. A very exhausted and tired part of his mind felt anxious and afraid, but that part had been drowned in floods of whiskey all evening, and now Richard was too wasted to even think coherently. All he could bring his mind to think about as he looked down into the auburn liquid was where the hell the glass had come from. It hadn’t been there before, had it? He felt a wave of anger sweep over him. And what the **** was that noise? Was there static on the television?
No. The sound came from all around him… from the walls… or whatever they were. Now that he thought about it, he realized the sound had been there all the time. Just like the ticking of a clock. You can spend an entire day not hearing it, but once you notice it, there’s no getting it out of your head. But that was alright. What really annoyed him was the god damn cork that was floating in his last bottom-of-the-barrel whiskey, making it undrinkable. He jammed his hand into the drink, trying to pinch the cork, but it was far too slippery. Then suddenly he noticed his hiccoughs were gone… and hell… he wasn’t tired either. And where the hell did his jag go? He removed his chubby fingers from the whiskey and lifted the glass to his mouth, eager to down the last drops now that he wasn’t drunk anymore.
To hell with the cork.
But then he noticed the little thing floating around in his liquor wasn’t a cork, after all. He’d be damned if it didn’t look like a… a face?
Flinching, he threw the glass away and it vanished into the endless grayness. He knew that face. He knew that goddamn face lying dead and cold in his whiskey, but before he remembered who it was, another thought suddenly struck him; his drawing was gone.
He ripped his t-shirt apart and bared his chest, but there was nothing there. His drawing was gone. Was that a good thing? Well, he had wanted it to disappear, but now that it was gone… he felt empty. Where the hell had it gone? And on top of it all, the ****ing static was ripping his head apart.
3
07.44
Richard opened his eyes slowly. His head were throbbing like never before, and it was not hard figuring out why. His eyes rested on the emptied whiskey bottle and he loudly cursed the world in general. The hangover was ripping his head apart, and there was a terrible noise in the background. What was that?
Groaningly, he turned his head around in search for the source, and he quickly noticed, to his great astonishment, that the vacuum cleaner was lying in the middle of the room, buzzing like there was no tomorrow. Suddenly he felt a strong wave of déjà vu sweep over him.
He rubbed his swollen eyes and instantly remembered how wrecked his face was. In a lurching wave of despair he remembered it all. The dream… the room. Jesus.
Annette Moss, the neighbor across the hall. Suddenly her name popped up in his head. There was something about her – and especially her face – that seemed important. What exactly he couldn’t remember. Had she been in the dream?
He ran his hand through the remaining hair on his balding head, trying hard to remember. There was something about the whiskey… a face… his neighbor’s face swimming around in the whiskey. How odd.
God. Was he going insane?
He stood up on weak legs and felt how the hangover was gnawing its way to and fro inside his head. He felt a little queasy, actually. As he turned the vacuum cleaner off, still not entirely sure why it was even on, a particularly ugly burp told him to set his course for the bathroom, and the second he crashed down onto his knees in front of the toilet he threw up a truly nasty sludge. As he wiped the sickening vomit from his mouth, a sudden urge to look into the mirror struck him. A sense of foreboding swept over him, and suddenly he was a nervously shivering wreck again. In a split second he was up on his feet and in front of the mirror, looking into his own glassy eyes. His face was still seriously screwed up, but as far as he could tell, no new bruises or cuts adorned it.
“Now there’s a god damn relief,” he said loudly to his own reflection. “A good god damn relief, indeed.” He was sweating badly, but despite that, and even though it just further mutilated his complexion, he managed a smile. It was alright. His shift didn’t start in another three hours, and hell, why not call in sick? He looked as though he had wrestled with a rhino, so he could as well take the day off.
So he lumbered back into the living room, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn while groping in his pockets for his cell phone. He felt at peace. Nothing too bad had happened… he had had a few bad dreams, probably just some odd side effect from the liquor he had so greedily imbibed. Somewhere in his drunken haze, he had fallen or something and hurt himself. So ****ing what? Big deal. Worse things have happened.
But Annette… her face kept popping up in his thoughts. What was that about?
He clicked on the television, hoping it would help clear his mind. He’d call work a little later.
Forget about Annette, forget about the dream and for just a little while, forget about the entire ****ing world.
10.12
With a jolt, Richard woke up, wondering for a fleeting second where he was. Then he realized he was still sitting in the couch with one hand clutching the remote and the other firmly placed on his pot belly. The telly had lulled him to sleep. Although he couldn’t recall any nightmares, he did feel a little odd. For some reason, he wanted to check in on Annette, even though he knew she started work around seven in the morning.
His entire being protested as he pushed his stiff body up from the couch and he heard his bones groan as he shambled his way through the apartment.
Soon he stood looking at the little silvery plate that said Annette Moss. He felt stupid standing there, because he knew she wasn’t even home. And even if she was, what the hell would he say? Hey neighbor, I know we rarely talk, but yeh, wanted to check in on ya… that won’t seem weird, sure.
He sighed and pushed the doorbell. No one answered. He tried again. No one opened. Then he put his hand on the doorknob, and the moment his hand touched the cold steel a tidal wave of memories flushed down on him. He had opened this door earlier this morning, somewhere at the crack of dawn, but that time he had carried a knife… a kitchen knife. He saw fragments of twisted pictures in which he kneeled over a bathtub… her bathtub… and in it was a repulsive mass of arms and legs floating around in the crimson-colored water. And there was also a head, separated from its shoulders, lying with the face upwards. It was his neighbor’s.
A freezing chill ran the length of his spine as the door swung open.
He remembered it all now. What had he done?
He forgot all about his aches as he raced into his neighbor’s apartment and towards the bathroom, all the way chanting what have I done, what have I done?
As he smashed the door wide open and saw the mess inside, he felt his entire world collapse around him. In a tangle of wet and reddened hair floated the severed head, now face down in the crimson water. All around it floated body parts in such a mess Richard couldn’t determine what was what, but then he saw Annette’s chest in which he had carved an intricate pattern, one that he immediately recognized as his own, although he didn’t really know what it was.
“No…” he breathed to himself, falling to his knees. His head spun as he eyed the scene. He didn’t remember doing this, but he knew he had. He knew it was the dreams. As slowly his mind caught up with him, realizing just what had happened, a tear ran down his bruised face, and once again he whispered: “No…”
23.16
For the first time in a very long time, Richard Robbins was a hundred percent sober as nighttime came around. The wind boomed loudly around him, shutting the world out. He was speeding along a dark road in the middle of nowhere, alone in his convertible. The day had been spent in a flurry of panicky cleaning, interspersed with anxious breakdowns and crying. In the end he hadn’t managed to hide the body at all. It was still lying in the bathtub, which was emptied on its red water. Now he was fleeing to the devil knew where. He just had to get out of that place or he would go insane… if he hadn’t already.
He knew he couldn’t fall asleep. There was not a chance in the world he would sleep now. So he drove. Drove to wherever the **** the road brought him.
Just get out of that place.
Just get away.
07.41
Richard was still awake. He was almost driving on autopilot now, and he had to work hard not to succumb to his exhaustion. He had spent the night shutting everything out, and now he barely remembered anything at all. He only kept one thought in his head, clear and solid: get away. Every now and then, he heard himself say it out loud, as if to reassure himself that it was still the right thing to do.
But he was tired now. Exhausted. Dead.
He had to sleep.
07.42
The transition into his deranged dreams was subtle and went unnoticed by Richard. For a minute or so, Richard’s car remained on course, but then it gradually began to swerve into the oncoming lane, just in time to collide with a truck whose driver was tired and absent-minded.
The sleeping Richard Robbins never noticed the collision – nor did he live through it – but that didn’t matter. The night was gone and he was now speeding along a gray world, its scenery absent under a sky of void. This was unimportant to Richard, even though he somehow knew he would be driving in that limbo for eternity.
The road he was on had no end.
1
07.43
A ray of golden sunlight awoke Richard Robbins.
What time was it?
He squinted at the digital clock, but discerned only a red blur. Dismissing the idea of locating his glasses as too troublesome at the moment, he let his head sink back onto the pillow.
Even though he had the feeling the morning was much younger than when he usually woke up, he didn’t feel tired at all; on the contrary, he was more alert than he had been in months… maybe even years?
The little gap in the curtains he had so negligently ignored last evening shone golden now, almost as if the morning sun had taken well care of the opportunity and shot Richard down with its brightest beams of light. Grunting noisily, he pulled the sheets over his face.
With a shock, he remembered the dream. The nightmare.
Well, it wasn’t just a nightmare. It was an odd nightmare; he couldn’t recall ever dreaming something similar.
He shuddered slightly as pictures of himself cutting deep wounds in his skin danced in front of his eyes. Sitting in a chair in a blank, featureless room, he wielded a sinuous knife. The walls were gray and… no, they were not walls, they were… they were just nothingness. They were not important. The only thing around was the chair and himself. And then he pushed the tip of the blade into his bare chest, making droplets of crimson blood run down his chest to form a little pool on his pot belly. Then he moved the knife, but he was no longer looking at it, because he knew he’d get it right – every last detail. He felt no pain.
Of course he hadn’t, because it was a dream, he reminded himself.
But what was it he knew he would get right? A pattern? On himself?
He felt a wave of goose bumps erupting all over his body at the thought of this.
He removed the sheets and felt the warming light wash away the pictures. He knew that it was a dream, fictional visions projected by his own, stupid mind and nothing more… but it was indeed a very weird – and unusually scary – nightmare. Mutilating himself? How repulsive.
Just let it go, he told himself. Just let it go.
23.18
Richard Robbins lay in his bed, troubled thoughts intervening with his attempts at relaxing. As the years had come and gone, the prospect of falling asleep had become more and more difficult. Luckily, he had developed a perfect cure for that; a whiskey and two beers before bedtime and he would go out as a candle in a storm. Only this time, he didn’t. As a matter of fact, he had drunk quite a lot of whiskey, because there was after all something troubling his mind.
His fussy thoughts strayed towards the memory of last night’s dreams. Could that be what was worrying him? The memory of the dream in which he maimed his own body?
No… that wasn’t it. There was something else. The dream was after all only a dream. What troubled him was… a feeling.
He turned restlessly in his bed, trying to clear his mind, but it would be more than an hour until he finally fell asleep.
The last resemblance of a thought his drunken mind spun before he passed out was that of an anxiety… or was it foreboding?
2
07.42
It was with a rumbling groan that Richard woke up. Right from the moment he regained consciousness one thought stood clearer in his head than any other; hangover. Cursing his own stupidity, he wondered for a short moment what day it was.
Sunday.
How many glasses of whiskey had he consumed? Come on, he hadn’t been this hung over since high school. Every single bone in his body seemed to ache, and his head threatened to explode, unless of course it already had.
Forcing his eyes open sent a fresh jolt of pain through his head. He groaned again.
Fumbling for his glasses, he sat up while trying not to smell his own breath. As soon as his vision was restored, he looked out through the gap in the curtains. No sun today.
The alarm clock told him that the morning was way too early to be enjoyed, but now that he was up he could very well stay up. He wasn’t tired anyway.
But dearly beloved God, what was this terrible ache? Had he rolled off the bed while asleep? Or had he bumped his head… no, his entire body… into something while being drunk yesterday? Had he really been that drunk?
Okay, let’s think.
He had downed two beers, as per usual, and then he had groped for the bottle of whiskey not entirely coincidentally placed on the table beside the couch. Since it had been Saturday, he had helped himself to a second one right after the first. And then a third. And perhaps there was a fourth, but that was it. Was that enough to make him as drunk as he remembered – or rather didn’t – himself to be? Or as hung over as he felt?
No.
“I’m getting old,” he finally concluded miserably in his lonesomeness.
He set off towards the bathroom, intent on brushing the reeking stench from his mouth. He also had to take a piss, but that could wait a few more minutes.
As he entered the bathroom and saw himself in the mirror, he forgot both of these things. The sight that welcomed him was… gruesome. Behind his glasses stared a swollen and bruised face – a face he barely recognized as his own. For many long moments he stared and stared at himself, entirely dumbfounded. What the hell had happened? It was as if he had participated in the worst bar brawl imaginable.
And then, as he slowly started to accept that what he saw actually was himself, and that that maimed face really was his own, he also began to remember.
The ashen void surrounding him was once again strangely unintelligible and nonessential. The chair underneath him… no, it was not there anymore… he had risen to his feet. The drawing was done. The drawing on his chest, cut with the knife he had now dropped to the floor… which really wasn’t a floor, but a substance of… he couldn’t quite put his finger on it… it was not important. The important thing was that he had regrets. Many regrets. He had completed the drawing exactly as he had planned… every detail simply… perfect. But now what? It wouldn’t disappear – it was stuck there. How would he get rid of it? Was he gonna have to make another drawing? But it hurt so much. But maybe… on something else?
What was that? Anger? Damn stupid, it was, that he always did things he’d later regret! ****! It would all have to be redone.
Now he walked up to the wall... yes, now there was a wall... gray, distant and cold... and nonessential... but it was there. And he head-butted it. First with his forehead, then with his entire face. He felt how his skin cracked and saw through swelling eyes how his blood was splattered all over the wall. But it was alright – he had to punish himself so come next time he felt he’d go and do something stupid, he just might as ****ing well remember not to!
He snapped out of his remembrance and shook his head maniacally.
“IT WAS A DREAM!” he roared at his own reflection whose swollen eyes were brimming with tears. “A DREAM! A DREAM!”
And then he drew one deep breath, and calmed down a little. He futilely tried to wrap his head around what the hell was going on, but it just wasn’t possible. No, no, what had happened was that he had sleepwalked and stumbled on some stupid thing and fell onto the floor… landing on his head.
Of course!
Of course!
01.11
The bottle formerly filled with whiskey now lay overturned and empty on the couch. Richard himself sat slouched beside it, his thick and wheezy breathing interspersed with heavy sighs. He had spent the day zipping whiskey, smoking cigarettes and listening to his own increasingly drunken hiccoughs as he had tried to wrap his head around what had happened. It was from sheer fright that he hadn’t already passed out, but he could now feel the alcohol working on his last line of defense. Soon he would have to succumb to his weariness and face the nightmares that presumably awaited. A very exhausted and tired part of his mind felt anxious and afraid, but that part had been drowned in floods of whiskey all evening, and now Richard was too wasted to even think coherently. All he could bring his mind to think about as he looked down into the auburn liquid was where the hell the glass had come from. It hadn’t been there before, had it? He felt a wave of anger sweep over him. And what the **** was that noise? Was there static on the television?
No. The sound came from all around him… from the walls… or whatever they were. Now that he thought about it, he realized the sound had been there all the time. Just like the ticking of a clock. You can spend an entire day not hearing it, but once you notice it, there’s no getting it out of your head. But that was alright. What really annoyed him was the god damn cork that was floating in his last bottom-of-the-barrel whiskey, making it undrinkable. He jammed his hand into the drink, trying to pinch the cork, but it was far too slippery. Then suddenly he noticed his hiccoughs were gone… and hell… he wasn’t tired either. And where the hell did his jag go? He removed his chubby fingers from the whiskey and lifted the glass to his mouth, eager to down the last drops now that he wasn’t drunk anymore.
To hell with the cork.
But then he noticed the little thing floating around in his liquor wasn’t a cork, after all. He’d be damned if it didn’t look like a… a face?
Flinching, he threw the glass away and it vanished into the endless grayness. He knew that face. He knew that goddamn face lying dead and cold in his whiskey, but before he remembered who it was, another thought suddenly struck him; his drawing was gone.
He ripped his t-shirt apart and bared his chest, but there was nothing there. His drawing was gone. Was that a good thing? Well, he had wanted it to disappear, but now that it was gone… he felt empty. Where the hell had it gone? And on top of it all, the ****ing static was ripping his head apart.
3
07.44
Richard opened his eyes slowly. His head were throbbing like never before, and it was not hard figuring out why. His eyes rested on the emptied whiskey bottle and he loudly cursed the world in general. The hangover was ripping his head apart, and there was a terrible noise in the background. What was that?
Groaningly, he turned his head around in search for the source, and he quickly noticed, to his great astonishment, that the vacuum cleaner was lying in the middle of the room, buzzing like there was no tomorrow. Suddenly he felt a strong wave of déjà vu sweep over him.
He rubbed his swollen eyes and instantly remembered how wrecked his face was. In a lurching wave of despair he remembered it all. The dream… the room. Jesus.
Annette Moss, the neighbor across the hall. Suddenly her name popped up in his head. There was something about her – and especially her face – that seemed important. What exactly he couldn’t remember. Had she been in the dream?
He ran his hand through the remaining hair on his balding head, trying hard to remember. There was something about the whiskey… a face… his neighbor’s face swimming around in the whiskey. How odd.
God. Was he going insane?
He stood up on weak legs and felt how the hangover was gnawing its way to and fro inside his head. He felt a little queasy, actually. As he turned the vacuum cleaner off, still not entirely sure why it was even on, a particularly ugly burp told him to set his course for the bathroom, and the second he crashed down onto his knees in front of the toilet he threw up a truly nasty sludge. As he wiped the sickening vomit from his mouth, a sudden urge to look into the mirror struck him. A sense of foreboding swept over him, and suddenly he was a nervously shivering wreck again. In a split second he was up on his feet and in front of the mirror, looking into his own glassy eyes. His face was still seriously screwed up, but as far as he could tell, no new bruises or cuts adorned it.
“Now there’s a god damn relief,” he said loudly to his own reflection. “A good god damn relief, indeed.” He was sweating badly, but despite that, and even though it just further mutilated his complexion, he managed a smile. It was alright. His shift didn’t start in another three hours, and hell, why not call in sick? He looked as though he had wrestled with a rhino, so he could as well take the day off.
So he lumbered back into the living room, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn while groping in his pockets for his cell phone. He felt at peace. Nothing too bad had happened… he had had a few bad dreams, probably just some odd side effect from the liquor he had so greedily imbibed. Somewhere in his drunken haze, he had fallen or something and hurt himself. So ****ing what? Big deal. Worse things have happened.
But Annette… her face kept popping up in his thoughts. What was that about?
He clicked on the television, hoping it would help clear his mind. He’d call work a little later.
Forget about Annette, forget about the dream and for just a little while, forget about the entire ****ing world.
10.12
With a jolt, Richard woke up, wondering for a fleeting second where he was. Then he realized he was still sitting in the couch with one hand clutching the remote and the other firmly placed on his pot belly. The telly had lulled him to sleep. Although he couldn’t recall any nightmares, he did feel a little odd. For some reason, he wanted to check in on Annette, even though he knew she started work around seven in the morning.
His entire being protested as he pushed his stiff body up from the couch and he heard his bones groan as he shambled his way through the apartment.
Soon he stood looking at the little silvery plate that said Annette Moss. He felt stupid standing there, because he knew she wasn’t even home. And even if she was, what the hell would he say? Hey neighbor, I know we rarely talk, but yeh, wanted to check in on ya… that won’t seem weird, sure.
He sighed and pushed the doorbell. No one answered. He tried again. No one opened. Then he put his hand on the doorknob, and the moment his hand touched the cold steel a tidal wave of memories flushed down on him. He had opened this door earlier this morning, somewhere at the crack of dawn, but that time he had carried a knife… a kitchen knife. He saw fragments of twisted pictures in which he kneeled over a bathtub… her bathtub… and in it was a repulsive mass of arms and legs floating around in the crimson-colored water. And there was also a head, separated from its shoulders, lying with the face upwards. It was his neighbor’s.
A freezing chill ran the length of his spine as the door swung open.
He remembered it all now. What had he done?
He forgot all about his aches as he raced into his neighbor’s apartment and towards the bathroom, all the way chanting what have I done, what have I done?
As he smashed the door wide open and saw the mess inside, he felt his entire world collapse around him. In a tangle of wet and reddened hair floated the severed head, now face down in the crimson water. All around it floated body parts in such a mess Richard couldn’t determine what was what, but then he saw Annette’s chest in which he had carved an intricate pattern, one that he immediately recognized as his own, although he didn’t really know what it was.
“No…” he breathed to himself, falling to his knees. His head spun as he eyed the scene. He didn’t remember doing this, but he knew he had. He knew it was the dreams. As slowly his mind caught up with him, realizing just what had happened, a tear ran down his bruised face, and once again he whispered: “No…”
23.16
For the first time in a very long time, Richard Robbins was a hundred percent sober as nighttime came around. The wind boomed loudly around him, shutting the world out. He was speeding along a dark road in the middle of nowhere, alone in his convertible. The day had been spent in a flurry of panicky cleaning, interspersed with anxious breakdowns and crying. In the end he hadn’t managed to hide the body at all. It was still lying in the bathtub, which was emptied on its red water. Now he was fleeing to the devil knew where. He just had to get out of that place or he would go insane… if he hadn’t already.
He knew he couldn’t fall asleep. There was not a chance in the world he would sleep now. So he drove. Drove to wherever the **** the road brought him.
Just get out of that place.
Just get away.
07.41
Richard was still awake. He was almost driving on autopilot now, and he had to work hard not to succumb to his exhaustion. He had spent the night shutting everything out, and now he barely remembered anything at all. He only kept one thought in his head, clear and solid: get away. Every now and then, he heard himself say it out loud, as if to reassure himself that it was still the right thing to do.
But he was tired now. Exhausted. Dead.
He had to sleep.
07.42
The transition into his deranged dreams was subtle and went unnoticed by Richard. For a minute or so, Richard’s car remained on course, but then it gradually began to swerve into the oncoming lane, just in time to collide with a truck whose driver was tired and absent-minded.
The sleeping Richard Robbins never noticed the collision – nor did he live through it – but that didn’t matter. The night was gone and he was now speeding along a gray world, its scenery absent under a sky of void. This was unimportant to Richard, even though he somehow knew he would be driving in that limbo for eternity.
The road he was on had no end.