Loki

Something I just can't seem to finish.

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It was the feedback on the radio that told me something was wrong.

I had just hopped into the car, ready to leave this commercial hell and escape to my little plot of land. This job, these people, this world has all been corrupted; the world we live in is made up of fakes, so much so, that now, there are fake versions of fakes. Even the explanation is nauseating, but I assure you taking part in it is even more sickening.

My suit felt as if it had shrunk a few sizes and all I wanted to do was rip it off and lie in the plains surrounding my house with the waist-high grass billowing with an oncoming storm. My mind’s eye painted the picture flawlessly as the engine turned over. The grin on my face quickly vanished as static exploded from the speakers and drained the color from my mind’s masterpiece before ripping it away entirely.

The static filtered through my ears, and I heard the message behind it: IT IS THE CHILD’S LAND NOW. IT IS THE CHILD’S LAND NOW. IT IS THE CHILD’S LAND NOW. IT IS THE CHILD’S LAND NOW. IT IS THE CHILD’S LAND NOW.

The message continued to loop throughout my head, disabling any control I might have once had over my body. I noticed only one thing: the way the word “child” stuck out. The word stood out; almost as if the sentence were a puzzle and that word hadn’t fit, so the piecer of the puzzle pounded it until it did.

IT IS THE CHILD’S LAN—HIDE YOUR MIND, PAUL.

The message ceased and the mindless droning of the static poured in between my ears again. The static had been there all along, but I had heard the real message. It used to happen to me all the time when I was young. I would be in the car or in my room and would snatch a bit of a message from a voice in the static. But, lately, I was starting to doubt if it even used to happen; it was so long ago, I figured it was the creation of a bored, imaginative mind. Obviously, I was wrong.


I tossed and turned that night, wrapped up in the sheets, sweating in spite of the chilly weather. I dipped in and out of sleep, but never plunging into the depths of rest. Every time I came close, I was awakened by a dream; a small silhouette against the white-gray sky plagued by an oncoming storm. The sky threatened its violence on the swaying trees and on top of the hill was a disturbing new, silent addition: a childlike figure.

When I climbed out of my bed, it felt as if my body had lived through an eternity; muscles were stiff and bones ached. I was just glad that, now, I shared my time with the newly awakening people around the world; I was no longer alone…in a sense.

My peaceful realization was quickly shattered with the shrill rattle of the phone on the wall. In the back of my mind, I griped that the caller had ruined my stretch and I walked over to the phone.

Lifting it up, I faintly heard the click of the line picking up. Once placed over my ear, the silent line erupted in a burst of shrill static. It burrowed into my ear and ripped through my mind; shredding any bit of coherence I had. I cringed and pinched my eyes shut.

The noise painted a picture in my mind, although the colors were dim, they only gave me impressions. A group of three men huddled together, gawking at the sky. The slate in my mind’s eye was wiped clear and then was built upon again and a new image came forth.

A black and white image floated up from the darkness; tall grass bellowing peacefully in the wind. A maroon spray erupted onto the grass as it began to sway violently back and forth with the gust of an oncoming storm; it was the dark red of blood. Things slowly faded out to black and I regained my mind.

“It is already here.” A voice said, piercing the silence.

“Hello?” A dry click from the other end smothered me into paranoia.

My number was unlisted, right? I thought I had it unlisted. I dropped to the floor and began rooting through the cabinet just below the phone. My hands wouldn’t obey me; they began to shake with such ferocity that it was hard to sort through the mountain of papers contained in this little cabinet.

Deep down, I knew that whoever called me hadn’t gotten my number through the phone book, but I had to cling to something. I needed something tangible; I needed something to confirm I wasn’t losing my mind. Bumbling through the papers, I found what I was looking for and tugged it free; it came loose with a handful of papers.

I threw open the book on the floor and pieces of paper drifted to the floor around me. I thumbed through the book until reaching the ‘M’s. The voice had sounded so empty. The most disturbing thing was that the voice was real. Immersed in a world of fakes and the one thing that is real, I don’t want it to be. In the back of my mind, a quiet chuckling rippled through me. Seemingly separate from me, it laughs at the irony while I sweat and shake on my floor, carrying out a mad crusade for my own name through a phone book.

I reach the ‘Mo’s and trail my finger across the inky surface of the papers. Dropping down to ‘Mort’, I find just below ‘Mort, Nathan’ my own name. I drag my finger over to the number, stunned. After staring at them for a few minutes, I realize that the numbers don’t match my own and that, just as I had suspected, I was left unlisted. Somehow, someone had the audacity to do the unthinkable and be born with the same name as mine.

I dragged myself over to the wall and leaned on it for support…or to support it. I wasn’t exactly sure, but I felt that soon either I would collapse or the world around me would. Riddled with adrenaline and sweating in the freezing apartment, I crashed to sleep and slipped into another nightmare.

2

“It is already here.”

The words awoke me from my highway hypnosis. The last client (the pharmaceutical merger) had stressed me out and must’ve put too much strain on my mind, that’s what was wrong with me.

After last night, I called in this morning and fed my boss something about a family emergency. I was tired and I mumbled a lot, but he bought it and told me to take as much time as I needed. He also said that there would be work waiting for me when I got back. Great.

I took the jeep off-road and headed down the dirt path. Pebbles kicked into the tire wells as the car bounced up and down on its shocks. The road fell away as the jeep coasted down a hill; the view from the hill overlooked my paradise. A few trees sprinkled on the landscape; they stood above the rippling sea of grass and overshadowed the land. The ground seemed to be moving as each wave swept up with the relentless gusts of wind and in the middle of this teeming sea was the sunken, wooden house.

Dark clouds were invading the bright sky and they carried a shadow over the land. I skidded to a halt in front of the ruin of a house and hopped out, glad to finally have enough room to stretch. As I did so, I stared at the house in front me.

It had a low overhang above the “porch”, which consisted of a few wooden planks. It was held up by three remaining posts, one of which had been broken in half. The mouth of the doorway stood wide open and inside, the darkness taunted me. Any details of the inside were swimming in such deep blackness that they were almost indistinguishable. I could barely make out an overturned chair and a plain table.

This job was going to be a lot tougher than I’d thought. It might be easier to just tear the place down and build a new one. I actually considered it for a while until I remembered that I would need a place to sleep while I was out here. The wind whispered through the grass as I walked into the house.

The floorboards creaked underneath my feet. I traced my hand along the doorway just as I entered and caught it on a splinter.

“Shit.”

Before lifting my hand to my face, I noticed that chunks of the doorway had been ripped away along with both of the hinges of the door. In my palm, there stood a large wooden needle in the middle of the rushing current of red liquid. I plucked it free and tore out some skin with it.

I stepped back out, off the porch, and went to my car. Opening it with my “good” hand, I reached into the glove compartment and grabbed some napkins while keeping the blood outside. I didn’t want to stain the gray, leather seats. I blotted the blood away and after seeing that no real damage had been done, I wrapped them around my hand and held them in place.

I slammed the car door shut, mostly out of frustration, and stormed my way back up to the house. The wind pulled at my shirt and whistled through the open doorway. Once I took the first step into the house, a chill danced up my spine as the air changed from a crisp, warm breeze to a cold, congealing object that seemed to crawl on me and cling to my skin.

The current coming through an open window seemed to only blow cold air as well. The hair on my legs stood on end as I began to peruse the ruins of the house. Blocking the narrow doorway to the next room was an overturned rocking chair, missing a leg. Against the warped, stained wood of the house, the clean, sanded appearance of the chair was like a needle in my mind.

Light poured in from a larger window on my left; it appeared this room would have been the dining room, if there had ever been any inhabitants. I was starting to wonder if this house had been built or if it had just wormed its way up through cracks and fissures from below the earth and finally assembled itself here. The missing door and pieces of the doorframe were scattered on the floor underneath the pale light.

The wind died down and a familiar smell drifted to me and as I continued forward, I realized that it was the strong smell of urine. Something wasn’t right about this place; something was off. The sound of a few more footsteps died as I headed toward the doorway; I noticed that there seemed to be some underlying noise just below the sound of the wind outside of the house. I tried to sneak as well as I could in the new hiking boots, but each thud of a footfall made a mockery of my efforts.

I arched over the rocking chair and took hold of the doorway to keep my balance. A napkin fell from my hand as I brushed it into the wooden plank and the bloody rag fell heavily to the floor. I tilted my head and pointed my ear toward the open doorway and finally heard the real sound; it was the sound of snoring.

I leaned forward and surveyed the room. It was dark and the only light filtered in through a small window placed near the top of the wall. The stench of piss stung at my eyes, but I could tell the room held no furniture, but on my right side, I could see the huddled mass of a man. The snoring was loud and I wondered how I hadn’t heard it over the wind.

The large shadow grew and shrunk with each sawing noise of its snores. Even from the noise, I could tell that he was big, but I hadn’t fully grasped it until I saw him. Surprised that he had even fit in through the doorway, my heart was pounding in my ears now. I had to get out of here. I had to get away from the house.

As I turned and began to flee, I thought of how he hadn’t heart me cursing earlier; thank god for small miracles. Stupid with adrenaline, I overlooked the chair and my shins clashed with it and sent a sharp pain through my legs. Entwined in the chair, I fell to the floor, breaking off another piece of the chair. I heard it splinter and break just before I connected with the rough wood below me.

Lying sprawled out on my stomach, I refused to make a movement. I momentarily forgot the pain in my legs and the throbbing heat in my hand and head and craned my neck to listen. The snoring had stopped.

I hoisted myself off the ground and caught my footing on top of the chair. Vaguely aware of it splintering and shattering beneath my weight, I sprinted for the door.

I burst forth from the darkness of the house and into the overcast light from the sky. The storm was still nearing, but hadn’t fully taken over the beautiful white clouds. I tried to look over my shoulder but couldn’t make anything out in the darkness of the doorway. I crossed in front of my car and twisted my ankle in the constraining boots; I slipped down the knoll just in front of my car.

The world lost all sound just as it began to whirl around me. I must’ve been rolling head-over-heels because I watched my car slowly grow further away and before things went black, I saw a large shadow standing just next to the car. The dark shadow and the white sky contrasted in such a way that I wondered if I had already begun dreaming or if I had ever even woken up. The serene fall, that should have scared me, had turned into a dance and I felt calm, no longer frantic. The dance seemed eternal until finally, it was lights out; intermission, I suppose.


Before I even opened my eyes, I already knew where I was. The strong stench of urine bit at my nostrils; I was back in the house. It sounded as if the window had been opened and strong breezes were burrowing in, but it was probably the giant gulping down air.

My head screamed in pain and the pillow beneath it was soaked in some warm liquid. I thought for a moment which warm liquid I was currently sleeping on; blood or piss. I hoped for the former.

“You awake now, boss?”

I thought for a moment about “playing possum” and decided against it; there was something in his voice that lessened my fear. Opening my eyes, I hoisted myself up and sat against the wall. He sat on his knees in the middle of the room. The light coming in through the window was gray and it silhouetted the large man. His broad shoulders were slumped and he seemed to be studying his hands intently.

“Y-yeah. Why’d you bring me back here?” I said, ascertaining a strong voice as best I could.

“I had to bring you back here, boss. If I’d left you out there, he would have gotten you.”

With my back against the wall and my knees tucked into my chest, I shuddered with his words. ‘He would have gotten me.’

“There’s no need to be afraid, boss. It ain’t dark yet.”

“I’m not afraid. Why would you think that? And what the hell does night have to do with anything?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Boss, I can smell it on ya. And to answer your other question…he watches at night.” The big man said. His tone, the way things were discussed so “matter-o-factly”, was chilling.

“I don’t know how you can smell anything over the stench of piss in here.” I said, pulling my knees closer to my chest.

“Like I said, boss, he watches the land at night.” He lifted his head for a moment and I saw his eyes in the pale light; they were wide with fear.

“So you’ve been pissing in my house because you’re afraid of the dark?”

He dropped his head and paused for a moment, as if registering what I was saying. He looked up at me with a smile; his white teeth piercing the darkness between us.

“That’s what you call this?”

My eyelids began to sag and the throbbing in my head had taken on a louder beat. My vision blurred with the pain and I felt myself slipping away.

“This house isn’t yours anymore, Paul. It belongs to the child. You hit your head pretty hard and you need rest. Go to sleep.”

The throbbing in the back of my head quickened. I clawed at reality, trying to hang on, but it slipped away. The last thing I saw were the teeth of Sam; his name came to me just as I fell away. He’d had a last name, but he’d forgotten it. It came to me just as the messages came to me between the static: with the whispering voice of intuition.

Groggily, my eyes drifted up to the open window at the top of the wall. Pale light drifted from the overcast sky. A bird flittered underneath the dark clouds; the storm was coming.

3

I always loved those few moments between waking and dreaming. Not quite aware of what’s real and what’s fantasy, the world seems to drift behind a surface of water. The way colors bleed together and objects melt into one another distracted me from who I was. I wasn’t a person, I was merely an observer. Completely unbiased to all my perceptions, I was only a witness. Until it all came rushing back to me.

“This house isn’t yours anymore, Paul.”

Sam’s voice whispered in the back of my mind. How had he known my name?

The same way you know his name, the other side of my brain countered.

The world no longer washing over me, but hitting me like heavy hammer, was dizzying with its bare reality. A light mist was drifting through the open window and the overcast sky seemed darker. I climbed to my feet and tip-toed to the doorway. I was strangely reminded of the Christmas Eve when I discovered Santa Claus wasn’t real. I had stayed awake all night and when I heard voices and rustling, I crept into the living room only to find my parents with a look of surprise and disappointment.

I leaned out the doorframe and checked both sides; if Sam was here, he was doing a damn good job of hiding.

I snuck forward and slipped out the door and into a bright and pale light. A mist seemed to be both falling to the ground and climbing to the sky; it crawled across my skin and stuck in my nostrils.

As soon as my feet were planted in the gravel and dirt just below the porch, I lifted my head to the sky. The bright, white of heavy clouds just above me was starting to turn darker; the clouds seemed to get darker and darker until the seemed to reach black. Lightning cracked between the mountains and it echoed down the valley. It would be here soon.
As I headed for the car, a thick noise began to swell up. It rose around everywhere; bugs, confused about the time of day, began to hum for night.

I ran passed the trunk of the car and slipped my hand into my pocket. I could go get the sheriff or get some protection and take care of this myself. I stopped dead and my tracks as my hand came up empty. I stuffed both hands in my pockets, disbelieving. My breath caught in my throat.

They must be somewhere on that hill. They must have come loose when I tripped. Then, something worse occurred to me; what if they weren’t lost, what if they were taken? I shook it out of my head and descended the hill. Whispers of the wind blew through the high grass as I dropped down to my knees and began to search.

4

The damp ground squirmed between my fingers like a bed of snakes. The grass danced around above my head. Slowly descending the hill, I swept my hand across the ground around me as I continued, searching for my keys.

If Sam hadn’t stolen my car, then where had he gone? The hill grew steeper; I slowed my climb and began to cling to clumps of grass to keep from slipping down what was quickly becoming a mudslide in the heavy mist.

My hope that I had lost my keys slowly faded away, but I continued to look. My breath quickened and I thought about the man in control of my freedom. He would no doubt be coming back from wherever he was; he had left all of his stuff in my house—the child’s house. I shuddered with the words.

My palm slipped out from under me and I spilled down the slope. Hands sprawled out in front of me, I shut my eyes, until I reached the bottom of the hill and slid into something. Eyes pinched shut and covered in mud, I let my head down with a plop in the wet mud and let out a long sigh.


We had bought the house together in our third month of marriage. She hated the apartment and I proposed that we buy a house together to raise our kids in; I was planning on moving out anyway.

We spent the entire day in our empty house. I rented a moving truck for the next day; so we spent the night there. As soon as it was ours, she proposed that we paint it, so we did.

The walls above the fireplace were a beige/white and had been peeling for sometime. I was reluctant to bring her in the house (I’d already been once before) because of the expression she might give due to its run-down nature. She completely surprised me with a subtle grin when she saw the walls; she knew its potential.

I was painting just above the fireplace when I spilled paint from the top of the latter and some dripped into her hair. A quick laugh escaped from my lips before I could hold it in. A paint fight ensued until we made sweet love covered in paint on the plastic mats of our empty living room.

I had fallen asleep with my head on her wet painted stomach.

But now, it seemed like the paint was forcing itself down my throat; each breath drew in less air and I began to panic. My throat felt like it was collapsing; I opened my eyes.


Pulling my face from out of the mud, I decided that the search for my keys was a futile one. Even if Sam didn’t have them, there was a slim chance that I would find them.

Clutching at clumps of grass as I slipped up the hill, I wondered arbitrarily if I would make it away from this house. It seemed like almost any thought I had seemed arbitrary.

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"You don't die enough to cry." - Kerouac

Loki

And my thread is officially dead...

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"You don't die enough to cry." - Kerouac