Go Away Go Away Go Away The first time I saw him, and I've…
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Go Away Go Away Go Away
The first time I saw him, and I've chosen to call it "him" because it reminds me of my estranged uncle, was back in Community College. A rainy, jittery sort of night. A night when I could no longer endure The Science of Musical Instruments, and the girl with the red hair and the crazy tall guy were driving me mad, so I went on a walk to clear my head.
See, the trouble was I could never focus. Never at all, on anything anymore. And every time I took a walk I could make little observations about the color of the sky today, and why the architect must have chosen to design that roof in such a strange way, and by the time I got back, my brain would be just a little bit slower, and I'd be good to focus, kind of, until I needed another walk. *And* there'd be less time left in class.
So, I was on a walk. Enjoying the black night sky.
When I felt a tap on my shoulder.
I turned. Of course no one was there.
And that's it.
Except, with what I know now, I'm sure it was him. I'm certain it all started right there.
I agreed to go to the City, away to that fateful four night trip, because I would take anything over home. Even the human equivalent of a squirming anthill. Even a box of worms. So off we went to the City. A horrible mistake, obviously.
Regardless, it was for a show, I remember. I was with two friends from high school I had kept in touch with, together to see a third, who lived in the City, and had a lead role in a play. The three of us fought the whole drive there. I don't remember what for.
Nor do I remember the name of the play.
But I remember Danny, up there on the stage, climbing the social ladder. Going to a prestigious university, for some obscure economic pursuit, then rising in the ranks in a big, powerful corporation, and eventually more or less running the world. And then, killing himself.
I guess the point of the play was money can't make you happy, or whatever more complicated pretentious version of that. I couldn't help but think though, I'd be happier if I had all that wealth. Might still kill myself. But better that than the office supply store that didn't give me the time off for this trip, but probably wouldn't fire me for going anyway, and a life that would likely reach the same conclusion, with none of the fanfare.
After Danny's show the four of us got together to walk somewhere to eat. Bonnie and Jay were so congratulatory towards him, and I did my best, but the City's big central square was unbearably crowded, and noisy, and everyone was trying to scam everyone else in one way or another, and I couldn't take it anymore, so I ducked away.
Went down dirty stairs into a subway station, thought I could find a tucked away hall without all those laughing people. I did find a refuge, of sorts.
When I walked into that grand, echoey chamber devoid of all life, I was unnerved. But only slightly. More relieved.
I thought I might stay longer, maybe explore, when tap, tap, tap I felt on my shoulder.
I turned.
No one.
Tap, tap, tap on the other.
I turned back.
No one still.
Then a tap at my shin.
Then the back of my neck.
Fingers reaching out and tapping everywhere and I couldn't see any of them.
I tried to jerk away and run for it, feeling a fingernail scrape across my wrist in the process.
Bonnie and Jay and Danny found me in the crowd waiting for one of the trains, hours later, apparently. Jay said I looked homeless. I was too disoriented to defend myself. And obsessing over, on my wrist, a tiny cut. Like a paper cut. Whatever it was, I knew for sure now, it had scratched me when I escaped, and was real.
The trip was a bust.
You know, going through the rest of everything all terrified I was going to be harassed by it again. My friends all diagnosing me with different labels like they know anything about any of this.
No more incidents during the trip to the City, though.
We said our goodbyes to Danny, and I haven't heard from him since, and we drove back home in silence.
After, I also started to see less and less of Bonnie and Jay.
Something about that experience in that subterranean chamber had made me not want to go anywhere anymore, except my apartment, and work. Because I had to.
It was in the stock room of the office supply store, which indeed was too desperate to get to fire me, that I once again felt the Tap Tap Tap on my shoulder.
But this time, just that. Just those three. I went through the next week breathlessly expecting more. Even after I showered the feeling off. Or tried to. This is when I started calling it "him". My estranged Uncle used to play these kinds of games. Jumpscares at inopportune moments, all throughout my childhood, almost obsessive about it. With mind games like this.
One awful evening shift, I had brought a blacklight into that same stock room, to find and remove a scorpion. This happened sometimes, and Danielle was always too chicken.
I felt a tap.
I turned around.
For the first time I fucking saw him.
Right out in the open, naked in the blacklight.
Glowing in the way a bark scorpion does.
So many agonizingly long, horridly human arms.
All branching out from an oil-colored, spidery-looking carapace.
"Go away," I said. As though speaking to him would do anything, now that we had some simulacrum of mutual understanding. "Please, go away."
A slow reaching.
Tap, tap, tap, and I left.
Left the stock room, left the store, and never went back.
My world has become my studio apartment.
And am I safe here?
Why would I be?
I checked my interminable missed texts from Bonnie and Jay, though strangely none from Danny, which the other two were evidently worried about.
Out of all those texts, I responded to one.
It was Bonnie, out of some kind of desperation, inviting me to go climb a mountain together.
I agreed.
Just a day hike.
On it, I resolved to come clean. To tell Bonnie what was happening. To tell her everything.
It was a beautiful day out there. The dark green pines and spruces. The bright, glowing alpine meadows. The sheer vastness of the sky, the snow shining on surrounding peaks. The summit. The atmosphere of the rain darkening the World on our descent. It was a beautiful day out there, and for the first time in so, so long: I felt free.
With probably an hour until back at the car, I said, "Bonnie?"
"Yeah?"
We looked at each other. I was afraid to speak.
Finally, she hesitated, then said, "I've been meaning to ask... I... We've been worried. I don't want to mess up our day talking about... well... I just want to know, is something happening?"
I opened my mouth to answer, and then thought she might have a point, about messing up such a good day, and instead I said, "Work's been hard, is all. And school."
Nevermind how long ago I'd stopped showing up to classes. And work now, too, now that I thought of it more clearly.
I started to listen to the chirping birds and the buzzing of insects again, listened for as long as I could.
That day was the last time I saw Bonnie.
One time, later, Jay showed up at my door. I saw him through the eye thing. He had already given up with texts, and I didn't let him in. That was the last time I saw him.
So now it's just me and this fucking thing.
He doesn't even hide. Doesn't even play mind games. Not anymore.
I sit typing this, and in my peripheral vision, right there, is fucking *him.*
At least what the UV lamp shows.
Dozens of human arms, all branching out everywhere, all jittery, and I can't focus on anything anymore, not with the tapping, and that jerky, jagged way he moves and the neverending, horrible anticipation. It's just so distracting.
I keep saying, "Go away, go away, go away."
I keep begging.
But he'll never go away.
When they finally drag me kicking and screaming out of this apartment, it will just be me and him, off to whatever's next.
I'm his.
#entertainment
source
The first time I saw him, and I've chosen to call it "him" because it reminds me of my estranged uncle, was back in Community College. A rainy, jittery sort of night. A night when I could no longer endure The Science of Musical Instruments, and the girl with the red hair and the crazy tall guy were driving me mad, so I went on a walk to clear my head.
See, the trouble was I could never focus. Never at all, on anything anymore. And every time I took a walk I could make little observations about the color of the sky today, and why the architect must have chosen to design that roof in such a strange way, and by the time I got back, my brain would be just a little bit slower, and I'd be good to focus, kind of, until I needed another walk. *And* there'd be less time left in class.
So, I was on a walk. Enjoying the black night sky.
When I felt a tap on my shoulder.
I turned. Of course no one was there.
And that's it.
Except, with what I know now, I'm sure it was him. I'm certain it all started right there.
I agreed to go to the City, away to that fateful four night trip, because I would take anything over home. Even the human equivalent of a squirming anthill. Even a box of worms. So off we went to the City. A horrible mistake, obviously.
Regardless, it was for a show, I remember. I was with two friends from high school I had kept in touch with, together to see a third, who lived in the City, and had a lead role in a play. The three of us fought the whole drive there. I don't remember what for.
Nor do I remember the name of the play.
But I remember Danny, up there on the stage, climbing the social ladder. Going to a prestigious university, for some obscure economic pursuit, then rising in the ranks in a big, powerful corporation, and eventually more or less running the world. And then, killing himself.
I guess the point of the play was money can't make you happy, or whatever more complicated pretentious version of that. I couldn't help but think though, I'd be happier if I had all that wealth. Might still kill myself. But better that than the office supply store that didn't give me the time off for this trip, but probably wouldn't fire me for going anyway, and a life that would likely reach the same conclusion, with none of the fanfare.
After Danny's show the four of us got together to walk somewhere to eat. Bonnie and Jay were so congratulatory towards him, and I did my best, but the City's big central square was unbearably crowded, and noisy, and everyone was trying to scam everyone else in one way or another, and I couldn't take it anymore, so I ducked away.
Went down dirty stairs into a subway station, thought I could find a tucked away hall without all those laughing people. I did find a refuge, of sorts.
When I walked into that grand, echoey chamber devoid of all life, I was unnerved. But only slightly. More relieved.
I thought I might stay longer, maybe explore, when tap, tap, tap I felt on my shoulder.
I turned.
No one.
Tap, tap, tap on the other.
I turned back.
No one still.
Then a tap at my shin.
Then the back of my neck.
Fingers reaching out and tapping everywhere and I couldn't see any of them.
I tried to jerk away and run for it, feeling a fingernail scrape across my wrist in the process.
Bonnie and Jay and Danny found me in the crowd waiting for one of the trains, hours later, apparently. Jay said I looked homeless. I was too disoriented to defend myself. And obsessing over, on my wrist, a tiny cut. Like a paper cut. Whatever it was, I knew for sure now, it had scratched me when I escaped, and was real.
The trip was a bust.
You know, going through the rest of everything all terrified I was going to be harassed by it again. My friends all diagnosing me with different labels like they know anything about any of this.
No more incidents during the trip to the City, though.
We said our goodbyes to Danny, and I haven't heard from him since, and we drove back home in silence.
After, I also started to see less and less of Bonnie and Jay.
Something about that experience in that subterranean chamber had made me not want to go anywhere anymore, except my apartment, and work. Because I had to.
It was in the stock room of the office supply store, which indeed was too desperate to get to fire me, that I once again felt the Tap Tap Tap on my shoulder.
But this time, just that. Just those three. I went through the next week breathlessly expecting more. Even after I showered the feeling off. Or tried to. This is when I started calling it "him". My estranged Uncle used to play these kinds of games. Jumpscares at inopportune moments, all throughout my childhood, almost obsessive about it. With mind games like this.
One awful evening shift, I had brought a blacklight into that same stock room, to find and remove a scorpion. This happened sometimes, and Danielle was always too chicken.
I felt a tap.
I turned around.
For the first time I fucking saw him.
Right out in the open, naked in the blacklight.
Glowing in the way a bark scorpion does.
So many agonizingly long, horridly human arms.
All branching out from an oil-colored, spidery-looking carapace.
"Go away," I said. As though speaking to him would do anything, now that we had some simulacrum of mutual understanding. "Please, go away."
A slow reaching.
Tap, tap, tap, and I left.
Left the stock room, left the store, and never went back.
My world has become my studio apartment.
And am I safe here?
Why would I be?
I checked my interminable missed texts from Bonnie and Jay, though strangely none from Danny, which the other two were evidently worried about.
Out of all those texts, I responded to one.
It was Bonnie, out of some kind of desperation, inviting me to go climb a mountain together.
I agreed.
Just a day hike.
On it, I resolved to come clean. To tell Bonnie what was happening. To tell her everything.
It was a beautiful day out there. The dark green pines and spruces. The bright, glowing alpine meadows. The sheer vastness of the sky, the snow shining on surrounding peaks. The summit. The atmosphere of the rain darkening the World on our descent. It was a beautiful day out there, and for the first time in so, so long: I felt free.
With probably an hour until back at the car, I said, "Bonnie?"
"Yeah?"
We looked at each other. I was afraid to speak.
Finally, she hesitated, then said, "I've been meaning to ask... I... We've been worried. I don't want to mess up our day talking about... well... I just want to know, is something happening?"
I opened my mouth to answer, and then thought she might have a point, about messing up such a good day, and instead I said, "Work's been hard, is all. And school."
Nevermind how long ago I'd stopped showing up to classes. And work now, too, now that I thought of it more clearly.
I started to listen to the chirping birds and the buzzing of insects again, listened for as long as I could.
That day was the last time I saw Bonnie.
One time, later, Jay showed up at my door. I saw him through the eye thing. He had already given up with texts, and I didn't let him in. That was the last time I saw him.
So now it's just me and this fucking thing.
He doesn't even hide. Doesn't even play mind games. Not anymore.
I sit typing this, and in my peripheral vision, right there, is fucking *him.*
At least what the UV lamp shows.
Dozens of human arms, all branching out everywhere, all jittery, and I can't focus on anything anymore, not with the tapping, and that jerky, jagged way he moves and the neverending, horrible anticipation. It's just so distracting.
I keep saying, "Go away, go away, go away."
I keep begging.
But he'll never go away.
When they finally drag me kicking and screaming out of this apartment, it will just be me and him, off to whatever's next.
I'm his.
#entertainment
source
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