SHORT STORIES
MODERN GOTHIC
It was cold in an abandoned house where I was crashing. A chapter in my life - surreal, yet so clear. As I sat there one night I decided to play some Chopin on a broken stereo my body Stewart dropped off in a kindness of his heart. Maybe by act of Divinity, or some universal desire to match one’s state of mind with one’s surroundings (in this case – a molded ruin of a house) the record started with the “Funeral March”. In melancholy I froze, scarcely capable of moving a finger, lost in a deep joy of contemplation. This was a joy of creating, associating and analyzing self; the deeper I sank in thought, the more I felt some inarguable truth which couldn’t fit in the humbleness of any language I speak. As I’ve come so close to it suddenly a need to light a cigarette invaded my mind and it took some restraint for me to wait till the end of the composition.
Doesn’t that seem like a typical reflex of a modern man? As I came close to a different turn in understanding some irrevocable truth that might grant me with a new gift of honesty and ethical conduct I automatically reach for comfort of habitual daily things, since I feel there is no way to know where this new understanding will lead me! No matter how pour my adobe is, how insufficient my resources might be – it’s my choice, choice that demands neither judgment nor explanation.
So there arose a fear in me, I was afraid of being afraid, and I wanted to write it all down, to understand better, may be, and then leave it behind, but the ink in my pen froze and I was always too drunk to steal a pencil.
I was a child interested in metaphysics. I read Hume before I could understand him; his cold logic only left one impression on me – How Do you know? Yes, the sun might not rise tomorrow, and yes, in the dark of the night there could be a hairless creature, body of a dog, face of a human, skin blue, lazy yellow eyes observing me from the top of a stairwell as I’m about to ascend to my bedroom.
As a teenager I often noticed light smoky figures dashing around in a corner of my eyes. I had this friend who went on an expedition hunting the Bigfoot. Now, it was a “hunt” as we perceive it, my friend wanted to gain wisdom from what he believed to be an ancient race of enlightened superior beings. He and a group of like-minded fellows went to Altay Mountains managed to climb to a desolated area they deemed desirable. There they camped and fasted. They ate less and less each day until they didn’t eat at all. That took ten days. On the tenth night, as my friend told me, the Sasquatch came from the mountain peaks. As my friend was lying in his sleeping bag, the creature touched his foot. Through that short, yet significant communication, some ageless knowledge was passed. When I heard this story, I was barely fifteen; this adventurous acquaintance of mine was in his mid-forties. I explained to him the problem I was having with seeing what could be ghosts. This guy invited a friend of his known to be an extraordinary psychic in the local bohemian circles. Enter grossly overweight, tight-lipped, wart-sporting and shrill Sandra (not her real name, we live in Siberia, for Chriss-sake) who, while turning one of her countless rings, pronounced that in my last incarnation I was a great XVII century scientist and seeing spirits shouldn’t be viewed as a problem but rather as a gift . She explained I have a mild extrasensory reception talent and in time should discover the entire pass of my incarnations. “This one, my boy, - she said, - is the final life you have to endure, which is why you’ve suffered so much. Forgive me for telling you, but you still have a difficult path ahead of you and it all is designed by Universal Conscience as the last step for you to take before you move on to the next plane of being.”
All that was good and well, but she did not tell me how to communicate with this so called spirits, every time I’d look straight at them they’d disappear. I’ve lost interest, stopped paying attention to my mild hallucinations and, finally, they seized.
Once, when I was about twelve, I had one of those terrible fevers. This time, as I’ve become somewhat used to them, I just tried to lay in bed silently, noiselessly, so my mother wouldn’t notice my state and send to that Hell of a hospital (Vosmaya Detskaya Clinicheskaya Boilnitsa Tsdentralnogo Rayona) where bloated, hung over nurses awaited, bluish colored by the fluorescent lights, ready to miss my veins with their gleaming needles, relentless in allowing you the knowledge of what a burden you’ve become not just to the State and the Medical System, but also to the loving parents, who never intended to bring a pile of rotting flesh as myself to this serene community of happy, healthy human beings. Yes, I laid there sweating and shivering, hoping for death rather then departure from home. In my childish weakness and horror I started to pray. However, I had some difficulty concentrating, so I started following the wallpaper design over my bed hoping that its’ repetitiveness will give me the base for necessary meditation. Little did I know, before too long the paper leafs and flowers started to shift, tangle, they’d become brighter some places, paler in others, till, suddenly, this gigantic face of our Lord and Savior, da Jebus hisself, was looking down at me mercilessly and somewhat with disgust. His eyebrows wrinkled in contempt as he sensed my desire to get my weak little hand around his vein throat, for being all powerful yet not stopping my needless suffering. I could see his burning heart shining through his enlarged pupils, as suddenly my bed finally gave out to my endless and violent shivering and fell apart with a loud crash. Two of my brothers that shared the bedroom with me, quickly summoned mother, who rushed me to the hospital, where I had my second clinical death. She told me, when she found me, my pillow was so soaked in sweat a tiny stream was running on the floor towards the door. I starkly remember her by my side in an ambulance, pressing ice-cubes to my pale, lifeless lips.
And now, so much later, this house where I’m shivering not from fever but alcohol deficiency. Not to mention it’s fucking freezing. Thank God I don’t have any feet anymore, to remember the bright side. Chopin’s “Funeral March” withers away, I turn off the lights and curl up in a couch. I’m wearing two pairs of pants, bunch of socks on my aching stomps, two t-shirts, two sweaters, a sports jacket and a knitted hat that covers me to my chin, eye halls cut out with a huge combat knife that now rests on a floor at the head of my lair. Yes, I’m always prepared, without a doubt.
Suddenly, right before I dozed off, a loud crack from upstairs made me sit up straight and ready for action, knife in hand, tanning in the moon light. My nostrils flaring, my ears sharp – all that due to being nearly blind without my glasses. The Christmas lights I’ve rapped around the rail of my stairs blink on and off, time of complete darkness allowing imagination to gallop, then merry red and orange lights revealing the absence of crouching figure that’s about to start shrieking in absurd slow motion before its’ fatal charge towards my dusty couch. All quiet. I let the knife back on the floor and curled back into fetal position to conserve warmth, when rapid footsteps upstairs, as if of a small person, aroused me from my comfort. Now I was getting pissed off.
With all this flashing through my mind I lit a candle, grabbed the enormous knife of mine and started crawling up the stairs. The wooden steps creaked under my knees while I calculated that if it’s a ghost (which is unlikely) it can’t hurt me due to a lack of body, if it’s a person, I stand a good fighting chance, especially armed with a ten inch blade, sharp as a razor (I seriously adored that knife). So, mentally prepared, I pushed the bedroom door open and for a second became paralyzed in surprise. Since I was sort of crawling my view happened to be pretty low to the floor and I found myself staring at some person’s expensive red leather wing-tipped shoes, slightly touched by striped gray pants. Judging by the sound of footsteps I heard it had to be a very small person, naturally, I was shocked to find someone of regular size.
With my knife tipped up and forward I charged and stumbled over my own prosthetic legs, which I left there earlier and now mistook for some mischievous intruder in the dark. All I had to do is look up further! Laughing and cursing I got off the floor and examined the rest of the rooms to no avail; little persons waiving kitchen knives were not hidden in any dark corners. I did some security cursing then returned to the welcoming couch and passed out without any further incidents.