Fear of the Dark

A short story inspired by silence, written Feb 2017

I am at home. I am sitting on the couch, my legs crossed, tilting my head in the usual way. I never keep my head straight, not sure why. It is as if I wanted my thoughts to leak out of my ear, but that doesn't work, because the ear isn't an entrance to the brain, just like thoughts are no liquid, but biochemical electricity that passes between nerve cells. So my thoughts stay in my head, bounce around, slowly chipping away my skull. 

At least that's what it feels like. Or that might just be my headache. I'm not sure. I try to stop thinking to see if that feeling of unpleasant decay stops, but while I am listening to the silence of my brain, I think about the pain, that isn't really pain, and I try to define it. It doesn't hurt, no, it's more some kind of pressure, but I can't really tell. There is something unnerving about that and I start to notice the silence around me. 

I am home alone, my husband is out with a friend. I have decided to stay up to wait for him. He had a long day of working, and since his friend is also his colleague, they will only talk about work. I plan to make him comfortable, so that at least the end of the week will be something pleasant for him. I always wanted a dog to keep my company in a situation like this. When I start to notice the silence. For now. 

While listening to my thoughts, I become conscious of the heavy blankets of noiselessness that are draped around me in an artful cocoon. It deafens the world around me and I look around at all the inanimate objects that provide no source for noise. They seem so unnaturally still. It wasn't this quiet before, something has changed. But what sound can an empty staircase make? What sound can a closed cupboard make? Right? This silence is so unnatural. I hereby decide to call it artificial silence. Now it has a name, now I'm not afraid any more. Haha, nice lie. I try dissecting that strange emptiness that vibrates in the air around me like a dead corpse. It is nothing real, nothing that should naturally occur. Natural silence should sound different. In a natural silence I shouldn't be able to hear my pulse rushing through my ears. My blood is too loud, I can't listen to the silence properly. Maybe that is what's so weird about it. I have become conscious of the noise of my pulsing blood that my brain automatically blends out of my thoughts, so that I am not constantly distracted. But I know that that is not it. There is something too strange about this silence. It has wrapped itself around my ears, as if it was cotton that has gotten stuck right in my ear canals, hindering any sound from even reaching my brain, instead of covering my surroundings with an invisible cloth, like in an abandoned house, to protect the chairs and tables from the dust that time brings. 

I lean forward and tap my fingernail against the table, just to make sure that I haven't suddenly become deaf. No, I can hear perfectly, the dead cells of my nail colliding with the waxed wood of the living room table. But the sound is wrong. It rings in my head as if I had just gotten a message on my phone when it was on full volume. I pull out my phone and check for messages. Nothing. I contemplate starting a game, but rather I turn the screen off. I feel like I could miss something. The sound of my fingernail tapping on the wood still haunts my head and that disturbed me. It was just a simple sound, a normal movement. Why am I still thinking of that? I should have forgotten it by now. Right? But I know why I still hear the silent little tapping as if it happened right now. Because I was afraid of the silence, and tapped the table to check. But why? What did I check? That I could still hear? That's ridiculous. Why would I loose my hearing? I get up. I have to do something, doing nothing I feel like a sitting duck. But for what? I'm alone in the house. Only my husband has the second key. Right? I go over to the radio and turn it on. Music starts blasting through the house and I immediately jump and turn the volume down. And more. And more. Until I have turned it to the quietest that is possible. Why? What might I miss? I am alone, there is no one except me that can make any sounds. Which sound should I miss? Probably I'm just exaggerating. I'm driving myself insane. It's probably this headache. It's so unsettling. I find myself wishing I had a real migraine, so I would be suffering real pain. Not this... whatever this is. 

The music oozing out of the radio soothes my thoughts slightly and I stand in front of the radio for a while. Until I realize what I am doing. Why am I standing in front of the radio? When did I stop thinking? What made me stop thinking? I was so nervous and anxious and paranoid before, why did that stop? Ah, it's back. My unexpected relief mixes with the rising unease. It's like a witches cauldron, mixing, mixing. The result is a potion of unnerving normality. 

My body is so tense, extremely jumpy, and I feel like any scare might send me running across the city and hiding in the closet, crying like a little girl. There has to be something, that gotten me into this state. What is wrong? It's probably nothing. My husband probably just moved a vase or a lamp is dimmer than usual because the bulb is dying. But I can't quite place my finger on what is wrong with my living room. The description of Mr. Hyde from 'The strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' comes to my mind. It was exactly this. He would unsettle people, make them uncomfortable, but nobody could quite say what about him it was. Maybe this house is a Hyde version of my house? Maybe my husband is already home, looking for me, panicking, because he can't find me, because I am in the Hyde version of our house. But that is ridiculous. There are no such things as Hyde dimensions, that would be supernatural, there is no such things as magic and the supernatural. Right? I start moving out of some impulse. I don't know why or where that impulse even comes from, but now I have to pull it through. It would be weird to follow an impulse to move and then just stop. I decide, while I'm at it, to check the house. If this is the Hyde Dimension, which it of course isn't, because there is no such thing, I might find clues for my husband looking for me. Yeah, I know, it's ridiculous, but I have nothing to do anyway, and moving around is only good for my circulatory system. So I start with the kitchen. I look into any reflecting surfaces. From somewhere I know that mirrors are a window into another world. I know of course that this is nonsense, that there are no other worlds, no Hyde Dimensions. But I do it anyway, just to check, just to be sure. It can't be bad. Right? 

When I'm done with the kitchen I grab the doorknob to go back into the living room. My reflection in the knob is distorted, but that is normal, of course it is. Then why don't I want to turn it? What is stopping me? This unwillingness from the side of my body to open the door can't come out of nowhere, right? Maybe there is something in the living room that wasn't there before. Maybe someone has gotten into the house. Not my husband, he would have called my name, notified me that he is home. But maybe a burglar. But wouldn't I have heard that? The breaking of a window? The squeaking of a door? No, I wouldn't have. I have all the lights on, a burglar would have been quiet. That's probably why I can't hear him now, too. Just that artificial silence, covering everything, with only the radio as quiet as possible, trying to chase the silence away. Before I was concentrated on the mirrors, so I might have missed a sound.... would I? Would I have missed a sound? I am so nervous right now, I would notice anything. I feel an impulse to tap my finger on the doorknob, just to ensure myself how loud a sound is and that I couldn't miss any. But if there is really something on the other side, it might hear me. But what if whatever is on the other side doesn't make a sounds at all? If this is a Hyde Dimension, can there be monsters? Ghosts? 

I shake my head. This is nonsense. I want to fling open the door, prove to myself that I am alone, but again, something stops me. I want to sigh, signalling to anyone that might see me that I am willing to follow this unreasonable instinct, given to me by the universe, but then again, no one can see me, right? I just let go of the doorknob, feeling like I just made a mistake by not following the script and go over to the cupboard. To whoever might be watching me, this must be a surprise. This is an actual decision, an action I have decided to make, without thinking about it. Just in case whoever is watching can read minds. I slap myself mentally. There is nobody watching me! I am alone. But still I pull open the drawer soundlessly, as if not quite ready to forget the imaginary burglar in the living room. Because he is imaginary. Right? 

I pick one of the special silver knives I got for my wedding, just in case it isn't just a burglar. A little over precaution can't be bad. Right? 

With the knife I go to the door again. This time I won't let fear freeze me. I grab the knob, turn it, and just as I am about to fling the door wide open, I just open it a little crack. Barely enough for me to see what is on the other side. There is nothing. At least nothing out of the ordinary. If there was nothing, that would be unsettling, I jokingly tell myself. I slowly open the door wider, secretly expecting a psycho to slash his machete at me every second as I do so. It's all normal. There is the wallpaper, same as usual. The cupboards are in all their normal places. The carpet on the stairs is the way it always is. The table surrounded by the couches is as polished as ever, without ominous fingerprints. But the cushions. The cushions of the sofa are squished. Some voice in my brain tries to tell me that that is normal, that I just sat there, but that was like ages ago. Or does it just feel like that because I am so afraid? No, I was in the kitchen for at least twenty minutes, the cushions should be normal by now. Someone sat on them. But why would a burglar sit on the couch. He would try to steal something. Get to the bedrooms or something. He wouldn't sit on the couch. Right? 

It was probably just me. I look at my watch. There, I was in the kitchen for like 5 minutes, the cushions could never have recovered from me suffocating them for hours in mere five minutes. But I am still tense. I soundlessly sneak through my own living room. This must seem so ridiculous. But to whom? Who is there? I want to shout the question out loud, like in a stereotypical horror film. But then I think of a joke I once read. The killer never calls from the kitchen, Hey, in the Kitchen, making a sandwich. Want one? And he couldn't even be in the kitchen, I just was there. I want to turn around and check, just to be sure, but something tells me that it is a terrible idea to turn my back to the living room right now. 

I try to convince myself that I just checked the kitchen, that there can't be anybody in there. So I go on checking my living room for any reflections, and for psychopathic serial killers while I am at it. I check my reflections in glass and in any shiny metal surface that I can find, but there is nothing out of the ordinary. Of course there isn't. That is what I am expecting. That everything is the way it should be. I am looking for proof against my Hyde theory, not for it. 

 With the knife still in my hand I sneak around the sofas and sniff. If its a burglar, maybe I can smell him. But there is nothing. Another person could probably smell my perfume, but I am so used to that warm scent of vanilla that I don't even notice it any more. 

 I look at the knife. It is a beautiful sharp blade of nice pure silver. Its actually probably not pure silver, but I don't know. I wonder what it would feel like to hold it so my neck. I lift the blade and turn it so the blunt side touches my neck. But then I turn the blade around again. The fresh, sharp, unused side of the knife is lying on my skin. The sharp thin edge just millimetres from my vital blood vessels. One wrong move now and I am dead, and my husband will find the carpet bloodstained, the knife in my own dead hands. The thought fascinates me somehow, so I move the knife slightly. It feels very uncomfortable. I rip the knife away from my neck and flip it to hold it the correct way, sharp edge away from the body, not ready to stab but to slice and cut. I try the movement a few time, but all I hurt is the silence. No not even that. 

Despite the radio playing, the artificial silence is still there. It looms around, too loud in my ears. It shouldn't be here, but there is nothing I can do. If I turn the music louder, I am afraid of what sounds I might miss. So I bear the silence, this deafening, supernatural silence. I feel it getting closer to me, hugging me, squeezing me, suffocating me. It is a slimy blanket, covering me, trapping me. I slice the silence once more, this time in serious desperation. I feel like I can't breathe. I cant move, cant think, cant run, cant hide. That invisible being is everywhere, its mere presence is driving me insane. I run. I run to the main door, grab my jacket and run out. I pull the door shut, locking the silence inside. I breathe a sigh of relief. The silence cant follow me. Out here I am safe. Safer than in my Hyde-house. Right? 

I don't know any more. Now that I am outside I am cold and I put on my jacket. I can feel the silence in the house reaching out to me, its invisible artificial fingers slipping through the crack below the door calling me back in to madden me with its presence. But that is nonsense. I need to clear my head. I am overly paranoid. I look at the knife in my hand. It looks back at me wit its silver blade, a strange object in my hand without a certain purpose and use. But that is nonsense too. A knife is used in the kitchen. Or for cutting up a corpse. The thought comes so sudden and out of the blue that I stare at the knife in surprise. But that is what I had fetched it for, or? I have never used this knife before, it was always too precious, to special to use. Maybe its that because it was never meant for the kitchen, but to go into a murderers hand. To cut up corpses. I again am startled by my own thoughts. The knife is in my hand now. Am I the murderer. I shake my head. This is stupid. Its just another bloody knife from the bloody drawer. Nothing special about it. Its meant to cut onions and carrots, and I took it because I had a flash of paranoia. I put the knife in the pocket of my coat and start walking. I walk out of the gate and onto the lit street. 

There is a street light in front of our house and I am enveloped by the ugly orange of the light. I imagine how the silver knife in my pocket is flashing happily. But a knife cant be happy, it can't flash. A knife can reflect light, that's it. I shake my head and hope the thoughts that seem to have followed me from the house fly out of my head. But they didn't follow me, its not like when I shake my head they cant enter, they are already in my head, were already in my head when I left the house. 

I move. My body just does it by itself, I'm not planning on moving anywhere, I don't want to go anywhere, I actually just want to go home, to my actual home, not this fucking Hyde version. I want to be safe and cuddle on my sofa and wait for my husband in peace and quiet. But not that quiet! I feel the need for tears in my eyes. Well not my eyes, my chest feels like its curling around a dry cramping crunching muscle, a dryness that can only be relived by the salt of tears, but the tears wont come. I don't need to cry, but I feel like I should break down weeping. I grip the knife for stability and is swings and sways in my pocket with my steps and I still forget the crying screeching sucking desert ball in my chest and I feel the nice metal grip of the knife. I must be going insane. I am walking down my street with a silver wedding knife in my hand because I am afraid of the bloody silence in my own house. If I tell that to anyone they'll put me in a madhouse. Listen to me talk, I'm starting to talk as if I were writing an age-old novel. But I'm not talking really, just thinking words and sentences that nobody can hear. Nobody can hear them, right? That would be weird being overheard thinking that I thought about being overheard thinking. 

I slap myself mentally. And hate myself for doing that. Why am I paying so much attention to my head, why are my thoughts so real to me all of a sudden. They are like the roughness of the fabric of my clothing that I notice all of a sudden. I try to breathe, breath out my thoughts, the fabric, the voice in the back of my mind warning me not to turn around. 

I freeze. Not literally though, but my thoughts stop spinning for a second, as I notice the soundless footsteps behind me. I cant hear them and I watch my shadow on the concrete as it is thrown around by the ugly orange street-lights. I am walking on the street, not bothering with the side-walk. Its too crowded there, not actually, I am the only person that seems to be alive in this version of the world, but the lifeless cars on the one side and the fences and hedges and walls that mark the territory of my non-living non-existing neighbours give me this feeling of walking down a narrow crowded corridor, as if walking towards my execution. 

I don't really know where that thought there just came from, it just popped into my head. I wonder if that will ever stop again. I mean, maybe Ill calm down in a few hours, but I had these thoughts now, I felt this sense of unease and I had the idea of this world being the Hyde-version of mine, that will never ever go away again. I wonder if I could live with that, how I would even do that. I mean, you cant just delete thoughts. Right? 

Again, footsteps behind me. I keep walking. They are not really steps, not the clacking of high-heels on the plaster or the sound of business-shoes on the concrete, just the scent of movement and the impending arrival of the shadow of my follower next to mine. I don't turn, not afraid of what might be there, but of the act of turning itself. Even if I were to turn right now, my body wouldn't do it, Id just keep walking, or in the worst case stop and let that thing behind me catch up to me. Thing. I think about the word, throw it around in my head and my mouth, almost say it out loud. Maybe the Thing is an inhabitant of this Hyde-version. I don't know, I just know that I am terrified of the thought that it might catch up to me, and my instincts haven't fooled me so far, right? I keep walking. 

"Mantha! Wait!" I freeze. This time really, though still not literally. My mind is racing spinning turning and chewing itself apart, but not one thought reaches my consciousness. I now see the shadow behind me. It has a head and shoulders that look like mine, and they seem vaguely familiar, suiting the voice that came from behind. I slowly turn around. I don't spin smoothly, I tap awkwardly from one foot to the other until I face the man that is no in front of me, although he just followed behind me. 

He looks like my husband, sure enough, but there is something odd about him. He looks happy and worried at the same time and my brain tries to find out how I read that from his face even though it is so dark, and as soon as I look for key points, the expression falters and his face melts away from my grasp and I just see his eyes and his eyelashes and how is lower lip is fuller than his upper lip and the small mark of blood where he cut himself shaving this morning. I stop. How do I know that? I was still asleep when he left the house this morning, I was alone when I woke up. How would I know that he shaved? I cant tell when its this dark, how do I know? 

He makes a step towards me and I curiously inspect the sensations that course through my body as my muscles tense up. I grasp the knife harder, feeling its shining and its reflecting, although that's not humanly possible. But then again, if this is the Hyde-version, nothing about this is human. He looks at me curiously but doesn't say a word. He should be talking by now, asking what's wrong, why I look so afraid, but I am afraid and he doesn't say a word. Just walks towards me and puts his arm around me. 

We walk back in complete silence, his arm around my shoulder, the weight of his muscle fibre and bone and blood and sweat gland and epidermis resting on my body and my steps on the concrete. He is wearing no jacket, just his suit and the fine fabric scrub against my jacket, just ever slightly too fine and too smooth to be real. I look at him and he looks back. He's not wearing his headphones. He's not humming one of his songs. He's just looking at me with those too familiar blue grey eyes that are that tiny bit too bright. I pull out the knife. His eyes don't grow wide, he just watches me. Smiles at me. Leans to kiss me. I push the knife through his fabric, too easy, too soft, too warm and too wet. Maybe it will take me home. Maybe the Hyde's last breath will finally take me home. Right