Sleep HorrorA Story by Lee BakesThe vagaries of a compulsive, obsessive and disturbed mind.Dad was
reading the newspaper and I was painting red and yellow theatre faces on the
wall next to him. There was a crow cawing somewhere and dad kept flapping back
the newspaper page that was coming alive under the fan intermittently. I
noticed on an area that I had not painted, there now was a small palm sized
painting of red and yellow happy and sad theatre faces except these were
different than mine, they were a different red and a different yellow in
colour. I had never seen them there. “Dad,
did you make this when you were younger?” I asked with a smile “Make
what?” “This
one, this face pair” Dad
looked at me puzzled and after some thought said “Can’t you see I am reading,
really you could find a better time” “No I’m
serious dad who made this?” “Made
what?” “The
faces! This one. The one with the red and yellow on the left” “What is
wrong with you? You’ve been painting those yourself!” “Yes but
no THIS ONE, with the red and the…” “The
yellow on the left and the red on the right with theatre faces yes bloody hell,
stop bothering me” I was
confused, puzzled. I turned back to the wall and saw a fresh line of faces in a
different shade of red and yellow. My throat began to choke up. “Dad
please look, please! Who made these? Tell me please!” I pleaded, my head
swimming and numb. My father looked at me very bothered. “There’s
nothing there Guch now keep quiet and do not bother me.” I stared
at him. All I could hear was my heart. I sat there motionless as the walls
filled up with these new mutant faces, and the room darkened, perhaps only for
me. I wake
up with a start and my heart racing, my forehead covered in sweat. It is going
to be a long night. Shoulders
above I am numb, feet cold, the invisible tuning fork near my ear creates the
silence and makes it deafening. He is coming for me. Who is he, I do not know.
Have I ever seen him? Negative. All I know is that he is a shadow, and he will
kill me. Half an
hour passes like a day, my eyes feel stretched and my stomach feels like I have
been hung like a towel on a rod. I slowly try to accustom myself to the house. The
fan is my white noise and I struggle to hear above it to any extra-terrestrial
noises that may alert me of his coming. “Don’t close your eyes! Don’t
close your eyes! Don’t close your eyes!” I tell myself at first. The night is thick now. I
wonder whether the religious teachings are right about the fact that man’s
greatest haunting is his conscience. Perhaps I should try to sleep. I close my
eyes and my imaginations bellows to project images of gnarled faces smiling, of
teeth covered in blood and eyes….evil eyes. Images of my dead parents with
blood everywhere. My eyes snap open and as I sweat profusely I let my saviour
take over as my hand moves to my neck and I pinch myself hard four times. I try
hard to bury my nails so that I bleed but the pain is too frightening, so I
stop. I start counting obsessively till four. Stop, repeat, stop repeat. Let my
obsession, my God, renew my faith that I will be okay. I know
somehow that they are in the room. They are all around me. Looking at me and
waiting for me to fall asleep so they can slit my throat and then it is all
over, it is oblivion, I am nothing but darkness and nothing discreet, a non-entity.
My neck feels cold and exposed as if an icy hand will be placed upon it soon. I
paralyze with fear as a scream rips through the silence. Intermittent screams
of a woman on the road probably a mentally ill woman, hopefully a mentally ill
woman. I picture her as she is raped, or beaten or burnt to death. Shake the
thought out. My
hearing heightens as I strain to hear the door creak in the far end of the
hallway. Impossible, I think to myself. No one went to the toilet, I saw no
one. It is him then. 45 seconds pass before I notice with dread, my bedroom
door creaking open ever so slightly. I stare hard at it, and wait for the
invisible black shadow to come. It doesn’t. My body
feels a cold touch down my spine. My neck is caressed by the tips of sharp
objects waiting to pierce skin and bone, my legs lay limp as invisible plasma
crawls up and my stomach is the only part of me that reminds me what is real. I
am suspended in this fugue state only here, I am unable to distinguish the real
from the unreal. Darkness and light merge and preternatural is natural as my
imagination slowly wrecks my insides physically, because it is not a bad
conscience, but an unnamed fear of the same, a fear that harm will come to you,
even with your unnamed Gods. I have not wronged, but I am vulnerable I am weak,
I need to stay alive and for that I trust no one, not even God.
TO ALL
THOSE WHO FIGHT FEARS OF THE MIND EVERYDAY, YOU ARE THE STRONGEST. © 2016 Lee BakesFeatured Review
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StatsAuthorLee BakesIndiaAboutHello! I'm Lee! As a kid i loved writing creative writing essays at school and egged on by my kind and exemplary teachers I started writing in my free time and never stopped. My imagination is my hom.. more..Writing
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