..........................
My eyes open, but all I remember is blinking. Did I fall asleep? It seems as if I've been gone for years. My memory is totally blank, and I can't even recall my own name. I stumble off the bed to find a room as bare as my memory. Just a few posters are hanging from the ceiling and a dresser in the far left corner. I open the drawers in hope for some new clothes, but there wasn't anything besides a few pieces of lint.
The carpet draws my eyes, and held them. The pattern, it's so unusual. It falls together like keys on a piano. I actually used to have dreams of where I would be in a room, with thousands of pianos, melting. I think the person had a gun too. I always felt it was poetic in a way, even if I didn't know why, or who the person holding the gun was.
I hear something fall over in the hallway due to a large gust of wind that actually just tore the roof off. I try the door, and it finally opens. I'm free, I guess. The carpet hall has an even weirder pattern. Did I even really live here? How could I have lived with this, it's awful. At least the curtains shielding the windows look pretty. Very rococo-ish. But why am I even complaining, and where does this even lead to? I've been walking for at least half an hour. Who ever built and lived in this house must be a superhuman. Lovers spit drapes the wall.
After walking around for a while, I hear voices that keep repeating:
'Oh wow, this place is a dump. I mean Look at this carpeting!'
“I know! Why did our agent even recommend this, its so dilapidated.”
““You know, theres a myth of a ghost who lives upstairs””
But for some reason, I felt like this conversation happened years ago. Almost as if I had it with old friends. There was so much reverb on the voices... it kinda freaked me out. I fell to the floor and
I cried for when all was to come. The room was broken hearted. Am I really... dead?
'Oh yeah right, ghosts aren't real.'
“Yeah!”
““Pfft,I'll meet you guys up in the attic””
I awoke with my back aching from sleeping on the ground, and all I could see was some light coming through a window. Which was odd, because every other window had curtains or heavy duty sheets in front of it. When I got up, I shook all the dust that I had picked up from the floor off my clothes and I headed back down the void. The voices returned, but they didn't make any sense, so I wont write them down. However, the more unintelligible they became the more the hallway lost its desolate aesthetic.
I also started to feel really euphoric. Strangely I think it was because I felt I had walked down this part of the hallway before. Does this all relate to the dull voices? Am I one of those voices? Out of the blue, they beseechingly said:
“Yet we are connected”
I start to run out of fear, but I ram right into a door. Is this my way out, will I be free finally? Suddenly, a flash of light comes from the door. What could it be? A person? I opened the door, but only enough for me to peek in. All that was in there was a TV on static. I enter, and I get tackled immediately. I think I had a heart attack.
I awoke, yet again, in a bed. But this time to some person talking to me as if they know me:
Why is it that whenever I'm here, you're never who you are?
'Well, who am I? I have no idea.'
I don't know, but not like this. You act like a ghost or something; you're becoming translucent.
'. . . great.'
I can barely even see you anymore.
'I want to know who I am.'
Seriously, I don't know . People have just shown me in videos.
' People, videos? ... did you bring any?'
No people, but videos, yeah. Go grab the VCR, please? Its through that door, and just upstairs. Take the spiral staircase.
I walked through the door, and I saw the most amazing thing. Water, cascading down the walls, and when the light would hit it, the room filled with colors. I just sat in awe for, I don't know, hours. The water show stopped, and the staircase appeared in the middle of the room. I walked up the spiral staircase to the attic, and each step got smaller, rustier, and even more slippery. When I got to the top, I again, couldn't believe what I saw: Harvard yard. I remember wishing I had this house at that moment. A part of a school in your attic? I would never leave.
I walked around the campus for awhile, feeling blistering alone. Drenched in sweat, I entered an auditorium littered with trash and fragranced with decaying. It was as if everyone in the area had been wiped out for decades. I stumbled around looking for the VCR, but all I found were a few sun bleached cassettes. Which I stowed away in my pant pocket.
I started to ache, it was consuming me. The voices appeared again:
'So Where do you want to go today?'
“How about the movies? I so wanna see that movie everyone is talking about. I'd totally be lame if I didn't!”
““Oh come on, you've always been lame””
'Shut up man! ... hey come on, hes just a jerk, don't listen to him. But, yeah, lets go see that movie!”
“... I don't really want to anymore... I should head to the library and study anyways”
It was completely empty. Not even a floor of any kind, which I didn't know, so I fell down to the basement. Luckily there was another spiral staircase, so I glided up it. But I found myself back in the auditorium, instead of the library. I could hear people talking, but these weren't the same voices I've been hearing. These were much more begrudging. They sounded like gibberish.
“hhfdjoowwwkdk!
'ojhjyeakkh'
““kkii Sooolll boombbeddlgjksg””
Yeah, whatever. But the voices were picking up the trash and were re-furnishing the room. It was starting to look fantastic. The display totally impressed me, with chandeliers, and amazing floral rugs. The voices were fading, but luckily they installed a VCR so I grabbed it and headed back.
After leaving the auditorium, I could hear one of the voices singing at the top of their lungs from the dance hall. It compelled me. I couldn't even control my walking over there. The door was boarded shut, but I just went right through it. Cobwebs, fell from the ceiling like waterfalls, but I wasn't scared. I looked around for the voice, but it was nowhere to be found. Just a few tables and wine glasses. Right when I was about to leave, the voice returned. They put some record on, but only fuzz was playing; it comforted me.
“Would you like to dance?”
'Um... sure? But how would I dance with you?'
“Silly, just put your arms around my waist. Don't you remember?”
'I remember, yeah'
“Then why the question?”
'... because, what waist?' I said under my breath.
“... okay, be that way, be a brat.”
'How am I being a brat?'
“You know, you used to always be like this before we danced. It was foolish of me to think you've changed”
'You know me?'
“Oh yeah, big time. You used to always be the one asking for a dance, but you were always complaining about your moves.”
'I'm sorry.'
“I think you were intimidated by my dance moves. I always owned it.”
'Can we still dance?'
“Yeah, why not.”
I feel something reach out for my body, so I reach back. When I did, the windows opened to reveal a faint image of someone with their face to me. I was so happy. We spiraled, and spun. We waltzed, we tangoed. We even did a little running. It felt perfect.
But the voice left, without even letting me know. That blistering loneliness came back, and windows closed again, to reveal just how scary of a place this was.
'Pacific Theme' started to play as I walked back. I felt like I was being watched.
The attic was going haywire, everything was switching places, and I had no idea where the spiral staircase was. I was about to give up, when I noticed a squirrel. It seemed to wave me over, as if to follow it. I did. Squirrels are trustworthy, right?
It led me every which way, until I was too exhausted to move. I passed out, yet again. But I awoke to the spiral staircase.
I made it back, finally, but somehow dripping with blood. I tried bandaging it up before I met up with that VCR needer again, but It didn't work. The blood was too strong. It just kept getting higher and higher, and I was trying to swallow it back down, but I was already passing out.
::::
I awoke to the TV on full blast with a sticky note.
“PRESS PLAY! Love, v.c.r.”
The cassette was just vivid colors with faces over-layed on top. It felt, I felt like I was back home, I felt alive.
My eyes close, but all I remember is holding hands and having them open.
I felt awake.
