Showing posts with label David Castlewitz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Castlewitz. Show all posts
Picture This
By David Castlewitz
Rita stretched her long white legs under the table and lifted her hand in a “go on, get outahere” gesture. And watched Bernie, afraid he’d try to touch her. Letting him close that night two weeks ago had been mistake. She didn’t want his kisses, didn’t yearn to be in his arms.
But she needed someone to talk to about what had happened, what continued to happen, and Bernie was better than no one.
“Are you working at all?” Bernie asked.
She watched the barista fashion fancy coffee drinks. Outside, tourists strolled Canal Walk, where artists, sculptors and craftsmen set up tables and cloth-and-pipe display walls. She’d come to this town to escape the city and flee the art world, which she found cruel, its critics fickle, her erstwhile friends disloyal. One failed exhibition tarred her. Two sent her into oblivion, into exile.
“What’re you doing here, Bernie?”
“You called. Last night.”
“To talk.”
“I wanted to see you.”
She hated how he whined. Hated his milky gray eyes and furrowed brow, the dark spots on his cheeks and the moles and skin-tags on his fleshy neck.
“Did you bring the sketch?” he asked.
Rita reached for the cloth bag at her feet and extracted the sketchbook sheet she’d found in her lap when she woke that morning, sitting in a rocking chair, naked and sweaty, a pencil in her hand, the sketchbook on her lap. She didn’t remember moving from her bed to the chair.
“I keep doing this in my sleep.” She handed the rolled-up sketch to Bernie. “It’s just like the others.”
Bernie unrolled the paper to view the sketch: faint lines suggesting hands holding something thin and breakable, the curve of a leg, the hint of a breast, a face in outline, all bending away from a snarling mouth. In the five weeks since moving to this community, she’d drawn various versions of this same vision dozens of times.
“Do you think there’s s ghost or something trying to tell me something?” Rita asked.
“It’s like the others. Except….” Bernie turned the sketch for Rita to see. “I bet, if we put all the pictures side-by-side, there’d be a progression of detail.” He drained the last of his coffee. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” Rita asked, though she knew where Bernie wanted to go.
They strolled with the tourists on Canal Walk, past the artists and sculptors and craftsmen, some with colorful paintings to grace a living room, their colors matching the drapes, the sofa, or the rug; some with spindly forms spun from cheap copper, sculpted from soft driftwood, crafted from aluminum tubing.
They walked into an alley and then up the back stairs to Rita’s one-room apartment. She’d left the city with some clothes, sketchbooks, a box of enamel paint, and a small easel. She took none of her art, preferring to leave it with her dealer, though some went into a storage locker.
She pulled open the drapes to let in the sun. Natural light. She reveled in it during the late morning in front of her north facing windows.
Bernie hovered over the metal kitchen table. Rita gave him the sketches she’d saved. They weren’t dated. She didn’t know if she’d kept them in order, but Bernie arranged them on the table in five rows of four drawings each.
“There’s definitely added detail,” he announced.
She stood opposite him at the table. Some of the sketches possessed very faint and feeble lines she barely discerned; others – presumably the most recent – suggested a definitive event.
“He’s strangling her,” Rita whispered when the victim’s face came into focus. The features of the attacker were indistinct, but she sensed a thick, cruel mouth.
“Something must’ve happened here,” Bernie said.
Rita touched one of the sketches. It suggested a lonely woman. The next showed gnarled fingers and thick hair combed back from a high forehead.
“Or is going to happen,” Rita mused. Bernie slipped to her side of the table. He stood beside her. His rough hands touched her bare arm. She shivered.
“Maybe you need protection.” His hot breath swept across her cheek.
Rita faced him. She bent backwards. Tears welled in her eyes when Bernie’s hands went to her neck.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Bernie whispered. He glanced at the sketches arrayed across the tabletop. “Do you think that’s me? Hurting you?”
Rita nodded.
Bernie didn’t slam the door when he left. He shut it gently, leaving Rita to sit at the table, alone with her sketches, which fell to the floor when she slapped at them, her hands scrambling across the table top until every token of her nighttime visions lay scattered.
If not Bernie, she wondered, then who stalked her dreams?
In the days that followed, she drew no pictures in her sleep, no faint herald of a future event, no harbinger of doom.
She missed whatever guiding spirit or ghost lurked in the night. She missed Bernie’s visits, too. But when she called him, he didn’t answer the phone. He didn’t return messages. Soon, she let him disappear like all the friends she’d left behind.
She still frequented the same coffeehouse. She still looked askance at the artists along Canal Walk and the tourists admiring their wares.
When a tall stranger stood across from her one morning and introduced himself as Tom and explained that he’d seen her alone so many mornings that he summoned the courage to talk to her, Rita couldn’t stop herself from smiling. She invited Tom to sit. She walked with him alongside the canal.
And that night she drew a picture. A faint line here. A bit of shade there. Something taking shape for the future. Again.
- - -
By David Castlewitz
Rita stretched her long white legs under the table and lifted her hand in a “go on, get outahere” gesture. And watched Bernie, afraid he’d try to touch her. Letting him close that night two weeks ago had been mistake. She didn’t want his kisses, didn’t yearn to be in his arms.
But she needed someone to talk to about what had happened, what continued to happen, and Bernie was better than no one.
“Are you working at all?” Bernie asked.
She watched the barista fashion fancy coffee drinks. Outside, tourists strolled Canal Walk, where artists, sculptors and craftsmen set up tables and cloth-and-pipe display walls. She’d come to this town to escape the city and flee the art world, which she found cruel, its critics fickle, her erstwhile friends disloyal. One failed exhibition tarred her. Two sent her into oblivion, into exile.
“What’re you doing here, Bernie?”
“You called. Last night.”
“To talk.”
“I wanted to see you.”
She hated how he whined. Hated his milky gray eyes and furrowed brow, the dark spots on his cheeks and the moles and skin-tags on his fleshy neck.
“Did you bring the sketch?” he asked.
Rita reached for the cloth bag at her feet and extracted the sketchbook sheet she’d found in her lap when she woke that morning, sitting in a rocking chair, naked and sweaty, a pencil in her hand, the sketchbook on her lap. She didn’t remember moving from her bed to the chair.
“I keep doing this in my sleep.” She handed the rolled-up sketch to Bernie. “It’s just like the others.”
Bernie unrolled the paper to view the sketch: faint lines suggesting hands holding something thin and breakable, the curve of a leg, the hint of a breast, a face in outline, all bending away from a snarling mouth. In the five weeks since moving to this community, she’d drawn various versions of this same vision dozens of times.
“Do you think there’s s ghost or something trying to tell me something?” Rita asked.
“It’s like the others. Except….” Bernie turned the sketch for Rita to see. “I bet, if we put all the pictures side-by-side, there’d be a progression of detail.” He drained the last of his coffee. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” Rita asked, though she knew where Bernie wanted to go.
They strolled with the tourists on Canal Walk, past the artists and sculptors and craftsmen, some with colorful paintings to grace a living room, their colors matching the drapes, the sofa, or the rug; some with spindly forms spun from cheap copper, sculpted from soft driftwood, crafted from aluminum tubing.
They walked into an alley and then up the back stairs to Rita’s one-room apartment. She’d left the city with some clothes, sketchbooks, a box of enamel paint, and a small easel. She took none of her art, preferring to leave it with her dealer, though some went into a storage locker.
She pulled open the drapes to let in the sun. Natural light. She reveled in it during the late morning in front of her north facing windows.
Bernie hovered over the metal kitchen table. Rita gave him the sketches she’d saved. They weren’t dated. She didn’t know if she’d kept them in order, but Bernie arranged them on the table in five rows of four drawings each.
“There’s definitely added detail,” he announced.
She stood opposite him at the table. Some of the sketches possessed very faint and feeble lines she barely discerned; others – presumably the most recent – suggested a definitive event.
“He’s strangling her,” Rita whispered when the victim’s face came into focus. The features of the attacker were indistinct, but she sensed a thick, cruel mouth.
“Something must’ve happened here,” Bernie said.
Rita touched one of the sketches. It suggested a lonely woman. The next showed gnarled fingers and thick hair combed back from a high forehead.
“Or is going to happen,” Rita mused. Bernie slipped to her side of the table. He stood beside her. His rough hands touched her bare arm. She shivered.
“Maybe you need protection.” His hot breath swept across her cheek.
Rita faced him. She bent backwards. Tears welled in her eyes when Bernie’s hands went to her neck.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Bernie whispered. He glanced at the sketches arrayed across the tabletop. “Do you think that’s me? Hurting you?”
Rita nodded.
Bernie didn’t slam the door when he left. He shut it gently, leaving Rita to sit at the table, alone with her sketches, which fell to the floor when she slapped at them, her hands scrambling across the table top until every token of her nighttime visions lay scattered.
If not Bernie, she wondered, then who stalked her dreams?
In the days that followed, she drew no pictures in her sleep, no faint herald of a future event, no harbinger of doom.
She missed whatever guiding spirit or ghost lurked in the night. She missed Bernie’s visits, too. But when she called him, he didn’t answer the phone. He didn’t return messages. Soon, she let him disappear like all the friends she’d left behind.
She still frequented the same coffeehouse. She still looked askance at the artists along Canal Walk and the tourists admiring their wares.
When a tall stranger stood across from her one morning and introduced himself as Tom and explained that he’d seen her alone so many mornings that he summoned the courage to talk to her, Rita couldn’t stop herself from smiling. She invited Tom to sit. She walked with him alongside the canal.
And that night she drew a picture. A faint line here. A bit of shade there. Something taking shape for the future. Again.
- - -
13-Cedar
By David Castlewitz
The corner bar looked as he remembered it, its wide marble steps greeting patrons approaching from 13th Street and those from Cedar. But it lacked a snaking line to the curb and a hulking bouncer – Al with the Groucho moustache was George Sebastian’s favorite – at the narrow green door.
From inside came the soft resonance of brushes touching a drum, a strummed guitar, and a sweet female voice, sounds George found comforting, and as he stood in the dark outside the 13-Cedar Bar he recalled nights of bottled beer, cheerful friends, strong music, and alluring women. A neighborhood bar, the 13-Cedar drew customers from the college campus, local professionals, and the blue collar types holding fast to their part of the city.
George stepped close to the green door’s opaque panels of glass across its upper half; a warm voice bathed the cold window. A push on the curved wrought iron handle opened the door. No reason not to, he told himself. No reason not to visit a place where he’d been happy fifty-some years ago. No reason not to enter, even if the space on the other side of the door loomed dark and frosty, colder than the wintry chill at his back, darker than the unlit city street.
A light flashed to life at the end of the horseshoe-shaped bar; it shone on a willowy woman -- shimmering black and silver gown that sheathed her long legs and dipped forward at her thin neck – who sang softly. A song George knew well. He’d written it. Had earned royalties from it when someone contributed a jazzy, frothy beat to his ballad and someone else gave his words a husky female voice. Prominently featured on a vinyl album, the song offered George high hopes when he was young enough to envision a bright and happy future.
At another part of the bar, hands waved and faces emerged from the dark. Soft light spread across the dank, nicotine-stained ceiling. Paper and cigarette butts and other debris littered the uneven floor boards, along with sawdust that coated the tops of his shoes when he walked to where old friends waited.
The singer looked at him, raised her hand. She reminded him of a long-ago love. Who’d be in her late sixties now. She liked to sing his songs, put music to his words to improve whatever beat he’d devised when the ballads tripped from his mind like aimless children pouring out of school.
He hefted a beer. He drank. The crowd pulsed around him, into him, and he ingested a welcomed feeling of freedom.
“Your song,” someone said, pointing at the tightly sheathed singer. Soft music. Slow beat. As his ballad was meant to be sung. But a quicker tempo and an uplifting rhythm had been what sold the records and brought him fleeting fame.
He quaffed his beer. Years of writing songs while working one odd job after another, and then more years of teaching music to middle-school children, clerking at a music store – renting instruments, selling keyboards -- flowed past him in a blur.
His first love had died in a fire that destroyed their apartment, destroyed him as well for a time. These men and women drinking beer with him had died along the way as well. Some were fellow teachers. One owned the music store where he’d worked. He’d encountered all of them at the way-points of a life left unmarked by true progress. The fabulous and wealthy career as an artist had never come. Mediocrity dogged him.
He’d married, fathered two children, strove like anyone else, and worried about the future. A laughable situation, considering the aspirations that drove him early on when he came to this corner bar – 13-Cedar – to regale his friends with tales of near-accomplishment.
He often returned to 13-Cedar. In memory. But now he’d come again. To a street corner made dark by the night and the absence of a lamppost.
When he felt the blood drain from his face, and when the fear in his stomach sent waves of heat into his chest and he began to tremble, a nearby stranger said, “It’s okay, Mr. Sebastian. You chose to come here.”
George bulled his way through the crowd, eliciting groans from people he pushed aside, and curses and a hand that pushed back, and then fingers that grasped hold of his long coat and held him fast.
He stood by the door.
The stranger repeated what he’d said and George watched one of the dirty green panels of glass in the door become clear. A light shone on a body lying on the sidewalk.
He spun around, glared at the bar scene. He felt the stranger beside him, but didn’t actually see him.
“What’s this, my version of Hell?” George asked.
The stranger replied. “On the contrary, Mr. Sebastian. This is your Heaven. Your place of comfort.”
George caught the singer’s eye. Beckoning him. Friends at one end of the bar waved and called to him. The stranger was right. This had been a place of comfort. In the past.
“You chose to come here, Mr. Sebastian.”
The sound of his last name with “Mister” attached reminded him of past students greeting him, customers at the music store eliciting his attention, people he didn’t know addressing him for one thing or another.
His wife called him George and his children called him Dad.
He remembered: his son had come to visit. His daughter, too. His wife had cleaned their tiny apartment. They’d enjoyed red wine before walking to a favorite restaurant. Along the way he’d been drawn by the sight of a familiar street. He lagged behind them. Then he wandered off.
“No,” he mumbled. “Not yet.”
He pushed at the green door.
Red and blue and white light danced around him. Loud voices pulled him back to a life he didn’t wish to leave, no matter how unfulfilled, no matter his regrets.
- - -
While I've enjoyed an exciting career as a software developer, with some leading-edge endeavors that kept things interesting if not always profitable, my true love is SF and Fantasy, which I love to write, love to read. I've had several stories published over the past few years. Lately, I've been working on longer work, but keeping a hand in short stories when the idea and the urge can't be put off any longer. I live in a suburb north of Chicago, listen to Country music as well as Classical, ride a bicycle, and can sometimes be a TV junkie.
My web site is www.davidsjournal.com. My Kindle-published books can be accessed by visiting my author’s page:
https://www.amazon.com/author/davidcastlewitz
By David Castlewitz
The corner bar looked as he remembered it, its wide marble steps greeting patrons approaching from 13th Street and those from Cedar. But it lacked a snaking line to the curb and a hulking bouncer – Al with the Groucho moustache was George Sebastian’s favorite – at the narrow green door.
From inside came the soft resonance of brushes touching a drum, a strummed guitar, and a sweet female voice, sounds George found comforting, and as he stood in the dark outside the 13-Cedar Bar he recalled nights of bottled beer, cheerful friends, strong music, and alluring women. A neighborhood bar, the 13-Cedar drew customers from the college campus, local professionals, and the blue collar types holding fast to their part of the city.
George stepped close to the green door’s opaque panels of glass across its upper half; a warm voice bathed the cold window. A push on the curved wrought iron handle opened the door. No reason not to, he told himself. No reason not to visit a place where he’d been happy fifty-some years ago. No reason not to enter, even if the space on the other side of the door loomed dark and frosty, colder than the wintry chill at his back, darker than the unlit city street.
A light flashed to life at the end of the horseshoe-shaped bar; it shone on a willowy woman -- shimmering black and silver gown that sheathed her long legs and dipped forward at her thin neck – who sang softly. A song George knew well. He’d written it. Had earned royalties from it when someone contributed a jazzy, frothy beat to his ballad and someone else gave his words a husky female voice. Prominently featured on a vinyl album, the song offered George high hopes when he was young enough to envision a bright and happy future.
At another part of the bar, hands waved and faces emerged from the dark. Soft light spread across the dank, nicotine-stained ceiling. Paper and cigarette butts and other debris littered the uneven floor boards, along with sawdust that coated the tops of his shoes when he walked to where old friends waited.
The singer looked at him, raised her hand. She reminded him of a long-ago love. Who’d be in her late sixties now. She liked to sing his songs, put music to his words to improve whatever beat he’d devised when the ballads tripped from his mind like aimless children pouring out of school.
He hefted a beer. He drank. The crowd pulsed around him, into him, and he ingested a welcomed feeling of freedom.
“Your song,” someone said, pointing at the tightly sheathed singer. Soft music. Slow beat. As his ballad was meant to be sung. But a quicker tempo and an uplifting rhythm had been what sold the records and brought him fleeting fame.
He quaffed his beer. Years of writing songs while working one odd job after another, and then more years of teaching music to middle-school children, clerking at a music store – renting instruments, selling keyboards -- flowed past him in a blur.
His first love had died in a fire that destroyed their apartment, destroyed him as well for a time. These men and women drinking beer with him had died along the way as well. Some were fellow teachers. One owned the music store where he’d worked. He’d encountered all of them at the way-points of a life left unmarked by true progress. The fabulous and wealthy career as an artist had never come. Mediocrity dogged him.
He’d married, fathered two children, strove like anyone else, and worried about the future. A laughable situation, considering the aspirations that drove him early on when he came to this corner bar – 13-Cedar – to regale his friends with tales of near-accomplishment.
He often returned to 13-Cedar. In memory. But now he’d come again. To a street corner made dark by the night and the absence of a lamppost.
When he felt the blood drain from his face, and when the fear in his stomach sent waves of heat into his chest and he began to tremble, a nearby stranger said, “It’s okay, Mr. Sebastian. You chose to come here.”
George bulled his way through the crowd, eliciting groans from people he pushed aside, and curses and a hand that pushed back, and then fingers that grasped hold of his long coat and held him fast.
He stood by the door.
The stranger repeated what he’d said and George watched one of the dirty green panels of glass in the door become clear. A light shone on a body lying on the sidewalk.
He spun around, glared at the bar scene. He felt the stranger beside him, but didn’t actually see him.
“What’s this, my version of Hell?” George asked.
The stranger replied. “On the contrary, Mr. Sebastian. This is your Heaven. Your place of comfort.”
George caught the singer’s eye. Beckoning him. Friends at one end of the bar waved and called to him. The stranger was right. This had been a place of comfort. In the past.
“You chose to come here, Mr. Sebastian.”
The sound of his last name with “Mister” attached reminded him of past students greeting him, customers at the music store eliciting his attention, people he didn’t know addressing him for one thing or another.
His wife called him George and his children called him Dad.
He remembered: his son had come to visit. His daughter, too. His wife had cleaned their tiny apartment. They’d enjoyed red wine before walking to a favorite restaurant. Along the way he’d been drawn by the sight of a familiar street. He lagged behind them. Then he wandered off.
“No,” he mumbled. “Not yet.”
He pushed at the green door.
Red and blue and white light danced around him. Loud voices pulled him back to a life he didn’t wish to leave, no matter how unfulfilled, no matter his regrets.
- - -
While I've enjoyed an exciting career as a software developer, with some leading-edge endeavors that kept things interesting if not always profitable, my true love is SF and Fantasy, which I love to write, love to read. I've had several stories published over the past few years. Lately, I've been working on longer work, but keeping a hand in short stories when the idea and the urge can't be put off any longer. I live in a suburb north of Chicago, listen to Country music as well as Classical, ride a bicycle, and can sometimes be a TV junkie.
My web site is www.davidsjournal.com. My Kindle-published books can be accessed by visiting my author’s page:
https://www.amazon.com/author/davidcastlewitz
Knife
By David Castlewitz
Why is this knife in my hand? Why the blood at my bare feet? I feel no pain. I’m not cut. But blood streaks across the black-speckled gray linoleum tiles, across the wood divider into the next room. And with the knife still in my hand, my head aching and I don’t know why, I follow the red lines that drip sideways, follow them into the next room, where I find blood sprinkled across that white carpet Jen insisted on buying.
Sprinkled, not splashed. Tiny dots, not elongated blobs. But blood nonetheless. Testimony to the fact that I killed the monster – my wife’s pet run amok -- which now lay dead by the claw-foot of the sofa, that upholstered eyesore Jen brought home years before. She knew I didn’t like it. Her mother approved, however, and that was enough for Jen.
I stare at the dead animal. Its head lay under the sofa, its stretched legs marring the white carpet. I bypass the carcass and walk to the base of the curved staircase. I put a foot on the first step and call, “Jen? You up there?”
She doesn’t answer, but I hear a noise. Not the screeching and scraping monster noise of a few minutes ago, but rather the noise someone makes when breathing heavy, ready to run and not yet running, frightened and shaking, and hesitant.
Which she is, my Jen. A trembling naked woman, legs twisted one atop the other, her thin arms crushing her small breasts to her chest. She hugs herself, the bed between her and me, her back to the uneven plastered wall with its cracks and dents and nicks, evidence of our arguments, of how her body smacked the paint and left its marks.
“I killed it,” I tell her. “The monster.”
Jen’s long face ceases being red from crying. It is white. Stark white, not merely pale; and she screams in silence, mouth agape, one hand across her blood streaked belly, her hand covering her breast, and her other hand gripping the wooden handle of a large kitchen knife.
“I killed the monster,” I tell her.
Eyes wide, she challenges me with: “Then why is this knife in my hand?”
- - -
By David Castlewitz
Why is this knife in my hand? Why the blood at my bare feet? I feel no pain. I’m not cut. But blood streaks across the black-speckled gray linoleum tiles, across the wood divider into the next room. And with the knife still in my hand, my head aching and I don’t know why, I follow the red lines that drip sideways, follow them into the next room, where I find blood sprinkled across that white carpet Jen insisted on buying.
Sprinkled, not splashed. Tiny dots, not elongated blobs. But blood nonetheless. Testimony to the fact that I killed the monster – my wife’s pet run amok -- which now lay dead by the claw-foot of the sofa, that upholstered eyesore Jen brought home years before. She knew I didn’t like it. Her mother approved, however, and that was enough for Jen.
I stare at the dead animal. Its head lay under the sofa, its stretched legs marring the white carpet. I bypass the carcass and walk to the base of the curved staircase. I put a foot on the first step and call, “Jen? You up there?”
She doesn’t answer, but I hear a noise. Not the screeching and scraping monster noise of a few minutes ago, but rather the noise someone makes when breathing heavy, ready to run and not yet running, frightened and shaking, and hesitant.
Which she is, my Jen. A trembling naked woman, legs twisted one atop the other, her thin arms crushing her small breasts to her chest. She hugs herself, the bed between her and me, her back to the uneven plastered wall with its cracks and dents and nicks, evidence of our arguments, of how her body smacked the paint and left its marks.
“I killed it,” I tell her. “The monster.”
Jen’s long face ceases being red from crying. It is white. Stark white, not merely pale; and she screams in silence, mouth agape, one hand across her blood streaked belly, her hand covering her breast, and her other hand gripping the wooden handle of a large kitchen knife.
“I killed the monster,” I tell her.
Eyes wide, she challenges me with: “Then why is this knife in my hand?”
- - -
Creases
By David Castlewitz
You see them out of the corner of your eye, those dark lines that materialize where dimensions overlap. They’re shapes that flash at the periphery of your vision. Sometimes you espy eyes and mouths, the suggestion of a curved claw, a hairless skinny tail, and the unspent energy of bent hind legs. Blink and they dissolve, yet plague your curiosity. Did they slip into your world from an alien dimension?
They follow you from room to room. Turn on the light and they bolt. Turn off the light and they creep onto your back, tickle your spine, loosen your bowels, and you run for the safety of the next room, and the next after that, always turning on the light, light after light, running in your own house, the house you thought kept you safe from these creatures.
They materialize as fully formed monsters if you look at them only from the corner of your eye, on the periphery of your vision, and if you don’t blink, don’t think they might be something else, don’t kid or fool yourself with other thoughts. Their tails wind about their long hind legs and they stand ready to pounce, snouts wet with spit, pointy teeth poised to rip you apart if you aren’t fast enough.
The crease is like the seam in the center of a pair of trousers that need repair. You’ve no idea how such things are fixed. No idea if you or someone else should be responsible for mending what’s broken, this chasm that’s wide enough for monsters to slip through.
If they’ve come to haunt, they’ve succeeded. You admit it. You tell them, they’ve frightened you, so now they can laugh and go home, satisfied that they’ve achieved their mission. All the while, you gather the courage to stalk them, to find where they scurry when the lights come on, whence they peek at you when you’re not looking. You carry a hot iron, thinking that might mend the rip, seal the tear, and secure the broken crease that spews the monsters.
No one knows what you mean when you speak of the clawed beings lurking where they can’t be seen, darting for safety when you see them. No one understands. They smile, touch you on the hand, the wrist, the arm, and tell you to rest. They warn against drinking too many cocktails with friends, too many liter bottles of wine when alone with your demons. Refrain from that shot of whiskey in your morning coffee, they advise; don’t have a vodka-and-orange juice helper to start each day.
Friends show concern. Until your talk of creases annoys them and they stop being kind with their words, their good wishes, their touching and their gentle urging about your health. Soon, they tell you you’re wrong. And they’re angry when they say it. You’re very wrong, they tell you; and, after hearing that so often, you begin to wonder if there are no monsters, none at all.
Something else? Perhaps, they‘re new friends who’ve come to be with you. Like the friends who no longer sit with you for an after-work drink, or the friends who no longer invite you out. The creatures in the creases might be the true companions you’ve always sought, even when those false friends pretended to care.
Convinced that they harbor you no ill will, that their curved claws are not meant to hurt you, that their hairless tails, though repulsive, are not poised to wrap around your throat to throttle you, convinced that what you feared for so long is not worth the weight you gave it, you leave off the lights, look into the shadows made from the head beams of passing cars on the other side of the curtained window, and let yourself draw close to the crease, to the seam that briefly parts to admit monsters from the other side.
And you, a creature on this side of the two worlds, peek into the void, step across the emptiness separating the planes, and listen with delight to the frantic screams of the people on the other side who, you know, are convinced they’ve been invaded by an ugly and demented demon.
- - -
I've enjoyed an exciting career as a software developer, but my true love is SF and Fantasy. I live in a suburb north of Chicago, listen to Country music as well as Classical, ride a bicycle, and can sometimes be a TV junkie. I've published several short stories over the years and my Kindle books can be found at: https://www.amazon.com/author/davidcastlewitz
By David Castlewitz
You see them out of the corner of your eye, those dark lines that materialize where dimensions overlap. They’re shapes that flash at the periphery of your vision. Sometimes you espy eyes and mouths, the suggestion of a curved claw, a hairless skinny tail, and the unspent energy of bent hind legs. Blink and they dissolve, yet plague your curiosity. Did they slip into your world from an alien dimension?
They follow you from room to room. Turn on the light and they bolt. Turn off the light and they creep onto your back, tickle your spine, loosen your bowels, and you run for the safety of the next room, and the next after that, always turning on the light, light after light, running in your own house, the house you thought kept you safe from these creatures.
They materialize as fully formed monsters if you look at them only from the corner of your eye, on the periphery of your vision, and if you don’t blink, don’t think they might be something else, don’t kid or fool yourself with other thoughts. Their tails wind about their long hind legs and they stand ready to pounce, snouts wet with spit, pointy teeth poised to rip you apart if you aren’t fast enough.
The crease is like the seam in the center of a pair of trousers that need repair. You’ve no idea how such things are fixed. No idea if you or someone else should be responsible for mending what’s broken, this chasm that’s wide enough for monsters to slip through.
If they’ve come to haunt, they’ve succeeded. You admit it. You tell them, they’ve frightened you, so now they can laugh and go home, satisfied that they’ve achieved their mission. All the while, you gather the courage to stalk them, to find where they scurry when the lights come on, whence they peek at you when you’re not looking. You carry a hot iron, thinking that might mend the rip, seal the tear, and secure the broken crease that spews the monsters.
No one knows what you mean when you speak of the clawed beings lurking where they can’t be seen, darting for safety when you see them. No one understands. They smile, touch you on the hand, the wrist, the arm, and tell you to rest. They warn against drinking too many cocktails with friends, too many liter bottles of wine when alone with your demons. Refrain from that shot of whiskey in your morning coffee, they advise; don’t have a vodka-and-orange juice helper to start each day.
Friends show concern. Until your talk of creases annoys them and they stop being kind with their words, their good wishes, their touching and their gentle urging about your health. Soon, they tell you you’re wrong. And they’re angry when they say it. You’re very wrong, they tell you; and, after hearing that so often, you begin to wonder if there are no monsters, none at all.
Something else? Perhaps, they‘re new friends who’ve come to be with you. Like the friends who no longer sit with you for an after-work drink, or the friends who no longer invite you out. The creatures in the creases might be the true companions you’ve always sought, even when those false friends pretended to care.
Convinced that they harbor you no ill will, that their curved claws are not meant to hurt you, that their hairless tails, though repulsive, are not poised to wrap around your throat to throttle you, convinced that what you feared for so long is not worth the weight you gave it, you leave off the lights, look into the shadows made from the head beams of passing cars on the other side of the curtained window, and let yourself draw close to the crease, to the seam that briefly parts to admit monsters from the other side.
And you, a creature on this side of the two worlds, peek into the void, step across the emptiness separating the planes, and listen with delight to the frantic screams of the people on the other side who, you know, are convinced they’ve been invaded by an ugly and demented demon.
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I've enjoyed an exciting career as a software developer, but my true love is SF and Fantasy. I live in a suburb north of Chicago, listen to Country music as well as Classical, ride a bicycle, and can sometimes be a TV junkie. I've published several short stories over the years and my Kindle books can be found at: https://www.amazon.com/author/davidcastlewitz
