That Night

A Story by John Sullivan

         I arrived at the apartment on a cool autumn night. The inky blackness above was hidden in the probing glare of the street lamps. I walked up the steps, opened the door, and stepped into the hall. Dust motes swam lazily in the light of the single bulb affixed to the ceiling. My mother's apartment was just two doors down, on the left. This detail is a lie, by the way. It is a fabrication of my imagination. It is as real as any detail I could write. By my recollection, the door to my mother's apartment opened directly onto a stairwell which in turn led to only one door. That is real. That is what I remember. And yet there I stood, alone, facing that dimly lit hallway.

         I turned and looked back into the cool, apathetic release of the night. A broken cognac bottle lay in the gutter. Its broken shards threw off the reflections of the street lights in all directions; a million diamonds shining in the light of a half-dozen electric suns. After a moment, I turned back into the dim light of the hallway. I felt once again the inevitable sense of movement, of purpose. It lovingly caressed me in its cold and clammy fingers. I stopped at the second door. I put my key in the lock, and turned. I opened the door and was greeted by silence.

         He sat at the kitchen table, gazing around the room. Through the walls. By my recollection, the room was lit only by a single lamp. It cast shadows in all directions, hiding all but the most basic details of the room from my eyes. My brother, he saw everything. I spoke to him in a whisper. Had my say. He said nothing. He gave me a knowing smile. He was amused at my ignorance, my ignorance of things I would never know or understand. His eyes spoke in the vaguest profundities. A fire burned there and I looked deeper. In that moment I saw everything. Lord knows I've been trying ever since to understand. Over his shoulder I watched a fly alight upon a mirror hanging on the wall. Where it touched, the glass rippled like the still surface of a lake broken by a stone thrown. This detail is real, I remember this clearly. As I watched, the silver plane of the mirror began to leak from its frame, running like mercury over the counter top and down through the spaces between the floorboards. I said nothing, preferring instead to watch cigarette smoke lazily weave itself in and out of the few shafts of light leaking in through the blinds.

         After a time, I stood and walked to the door, the beating of my heart playing a steady counterpoint to the gentle sounds of my footsteps on the floor. I opened the door and stepped into the cool breeze of the night. The sound of leaves crunching beneath my feet greeted my arrival. Dawn would be breaking within the hour. Above me, the garish orange haze of the street lights gave way the the brilliant blue hues of the early morning sky. My movements startled a flock of sparrows nesting in a bush by the kitchen window and they took flight. I watched one of the birds clip a low-hanging power line. It was split neatly in two down the coronal plane of its body. After flying parallel for a moment, each half turned lazily away from the other. They flew on in gentle discordant ellipses, disappearing from my sight moments later into the azure sea of the burgeoning dawn.

© 2023 John Sullivan

Author's Note

This is an older story, it's about the night I realized my brother was suffering from schizophrenia

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Reviews

1809 Black Plague Decem..

Hellos, John Sullivan, detailed, the story is mortifying,
I relate, very much, I'd say the psychological mind is profound,
but God, is our Father, and you know, my brother told me
Is there a soul, "Yes, of course," I told him, but then he said,
"the brain dead" dreadful, but there is faith, fate, "not hope" :P