The day had been slowly swallowed by a moonless
evening. I had been able to come home tired and shaking like a leaf. By the time I
got home, another Monday was on the verge of extinction, and my life was
getting shorter and too achingly to be enjoyable or at least bearable. I pulled
the keys out of my pocket and turned off the music. I breathed slowly and
meditating as the air whirled into my nostrils…there was still life and that
was all that mattered. As soon as I opened the door, and got embraced by that
eerie atmosphere, I felt numb. A tickling sensation all over the skin, reminded
me of a troop of ants marching to war, slowly, steady and decidedly. My self-restrain
started to peel off like the old painting of houses overlooking the sea. A drop
of frozen and translucent liquid fear slowly trickled down the right side of my
face, spelling mysterious words along the way down to my neck.
My fingers reached the switch and a flash of
light scared the shadows of the room, and they slowly crawled behind the
furniture…there, I was standing alone, behind the flickering light bulb,
wondering why that room with memories as sweet and clingingly as pollen, made
me feel so wrong in my own skin, like a déjà vu of a nightmare I had never
shared with anyone.
I grasp air desperately like a fish pulled out
of water with a hook piercing its mouth. Everything is much clear than minutes
ago. I walk with a tinge of melancholy in each step and head to the kitchen. I
strolled resigned like someone walking toward an electric chair reconciled with
himself and at ease with his past deeds. I rummaged in the drawer and I snatch a
knife, I started cutting onions and, though I tried as I might, I couldn’t choke back my
tears, and they started rippling out and down my check, then the pressing
sensation of vacuity flourished like a seed in fertile soil, I felt sullen and
rotten like half-devoured prey in haste. A wave of poisonous sorrow soon
flooded my eyes and I carved my finger.
I left the knife over the table, resting like a
murder weapon left on the crime scene’s floor and I washed my hand, the
purplish blood tinted the water pink, and it bled for some minutes. It soon stooped
bleeding, and I took the knife again with great cautious as it would be the deadliest
artifact ever manufactured, and continued chopping the vegetables, when it was
the turn to cut the beef I had this funny sensation of being slaying my worst
fears slowly, malevolently and I couldn’t keep a straight face, I just grinned
with something wicked sparkling under the dim, yellowish light of the light bulb.
I open the gas valve and it hissed like a snake
warning a trespasser, then I pressed the button and a minuscule bolt ignited
a flame; amorphous tongues of fire crept around the bottom of the frying pan,
and the oil started sizzling. I threw in the meat and it shrank at the contact of
the boiling oil, the chunks of meat writhed like fresh cut limbs of a gory
medieval massacre, and my mouth started watering, like a vicious murder staring
at his victim, until it ceased to moved…then I turned on the fire, with this
sadistic desire that had possessed me thoroughly and added the rest of the
ingredients into the frying pan, I poured some dense black sticky soy sauce,
that reminded me of the squid’s ink release to cover its own trace and being able
to vanish in pure confusion…I took a spoon and as skillfully as an alchemist mixing
the right amount to make the perfect potion, I tasted it, and the salty, sweet,
sour and spicy flavour reached every millimeter of humid skin which upholstered
my mouth and I knew it was ready, and just in time.
The clear rattling noise of keys trying to
unlock the front door warned me of his presence…the creaking sounds ceased at
once, the night seemed to have been exorcized and the lampposts shone taking repossession of the quiet streets. He was finally at home…sound and safe, there
for dinner as he had promised and holding a bottle of wine in his left hand.
….I can’t help wondering why the house is far
less aggressive as soon as he set his foot in it! Is it me who summon the
revolting silent creatures hidden in the shadows? Or is it just madness?
P.S: My first story...hope you enjoy it!
