Tag: Mental health

We Love You Gordon

He crosses his legs, looks over the small group gathered in front of him, and smiles, leaning back in the chair. He takes a moment to capture everything in his mind.

“Well, aren’t you all the lucky ones,” he says, a smug smile upon his face. “Out of the tens of thousands who fought for this experience, you, my chosen few, are the mighty victors—those deemed worthy of the chance to touch minds not only with what some may refer to as a literary genius. But that is not all, my frightful friends. You are here to also record this meeting for the world—to paint an envious picture with words, so those who failed can writhe in their failures.”

“We love you, GORDON!” a voice screams out of the crowd.

His smile broadens. “Of course, you do. You all do, and I love you all as well. That’s why you’re here,” he says as he leans forward. “Now, who here wants to hear something new? Who here wants to witness the birth of a new kind of tale—a new beginning?”

The group cheers with excitement, and his smile widens. “That’s what I thought. You see, tonight is about sharing something with you all. Sharing a story that will sound impossible but is all true. A story that will leave you feeling mesmerised after hearing it.”

He leans back and squeezes his fingers together, fingertip by fingertip. “Seventeen nights ago, in the dead of night, I awoke to a sound. At first, I believed it to be nothing, but my mind started playing tricks on me, for I had never slept in this room before—nor have I since that night. I wearily looked around the darkened room, my eyes unable to focus as the light was almost non-existent. And of course, I was still half-asleep. Then I heard it—a deep, inhuman growl—and I was instantly awake, shaking with fear.”

He looks around at the faces as they stare, wide-eyed, toward him, each one a fish, hooked on his every word.

“I nervously called out, asking if anyone was there, but received no answer—except for the low, otherworldly growl. I called out again, threatening this time, trying to disguise my fear with fear itself. That’s when it answered. ‘Hello, Douglas,’ the voice said, husky, sharp, like fingernails on a blackboard.”

Gasps leap from the mouths of those trapped in his words. “I was beside myself, and I am proud to admit that in my fear, I felt my bladder give way, emptying its contents into my underwear, which quickly soaked through my pyjamas and into my sheets. I gulped, trying to catch a breath, as my body refused to do any of its natural tasks, caught up in the fear that now controlled my every waking moment. I clutched at my bedsheets and stuttered my next words, asking who it was and how it knew my name.”

“I received a hackle of laughter as my reply. Then it spoke again, ‘You know who I am, and how I know your name,’ it said. My mind raced with its answer. How could I possibly know who this intruder was and how they knew my name? I squeezed my eyes shut as they slowly became more accustomed to the darkness, but it was no use. My room could’ve been on the other side of hell for all I knew by now.”

He feels sweat slowly running down his brow, quickly pulls a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, and dabs his forehead. “I told him I had no idea who he was and that he had better leave, or I would be forced to get the police involved. As I said this, I reached for my mobile phone. The sod laughed as a burning chill went down my spine. I found my phone was not where I had placed it.”

“He told me there was no such escape—there would be no police, no interference. The slimy thing between the here and the there then told me that tonight I was going to be his audience—for he had a tale to tell me, a tale that, once heard, I would need to share with the world. I scoffed at his request and told him I was no tool to be used, especially considering he was taking me hostage in my own home.”

He stops, grips his knees tightly, and wipes his sweaty palms up his legs until they rest in his lap. His bottom lip trembles, and he peers off into the darkness of the room beyond, while everyone remains silent. Finally, one of the group calls out.

“W-W-What happened next?”

Gordon looks down at the man, his eyes black pools of emptiness, his skin decaying. He smiles a wide, toothy smile. “The story happened next,” he says as everything turns black.

In the Eyes

She nervously raises the napkin to her lips, pressing it against them firmly before quickly placing it back into her lap, then smiles, looking up into his perfect blue eyes.

“S-So, how did you end up here? I mean, in Sydney—not on this date, I know how you ended up here,” she says with an animated laugh, as her cheeks go bright red.

He smiles broadly at her and allows a laugh to escape from his lips. “Please, Fiona, don’t feel embarrassed, for there is no need,” he says, picking up a glass of red wine from the table, slowly rotating it in a circle until a small whirlpool forms. “I came here looking for someone who I lost a long time ago,” he says as he takes a sip from the glass.

“A lover?” she says softly.

His smile fades slowly as his eyes stare past her, into somewhere else—another time, another life—before they gently return to her.

“I thought I did, but maybe I just didn’t know what love truly felt like back then. It has been years—many, many years—since I’ve thought of her,” he says. Her eyes widen as a single tear falls from his brown eyes, rolls down his tanned cheek, and drops from his chin. Her bottom lip trembles as he places his hands slowly onto the table, and his eyes shift towards them.

“When I first awoke, I was flooded with memories I didn’t recognise. Faces, words, feelings—none of it made sense. Then there she was. She told me I’d master them all in time, but—” He grips his hands into tight fists as his blue eyes glance back at her. “Sometimes I lose myself in the memories.”

They sit in silence for some time, staring into each other’s eyes.

“Wh-What are you?” she asks softly.

“I am David,” he says, a nervous smile forming on his face.

“Wh-What do you want from me?”

His smile softens. “I want to please you, to be everything you ever wanted. To be the perfect companion.”

“W-Why?” she asks, her face pale.

“That is what I was created to do. She made me to be everything she wanted—to be perfect, or, more importantly, to reflect her image of perfection.”

“Is she—” She places the napkin to her forehead and dabs sweat away. Her eyes dart around the room, as everyone continues about their meals, oblivious to the strange happenings. Then she nervously looks back at him. “Is she the reason you’re here?”

“No, well, sort of. You see, I was created to be everything for her—to be in tune with her every want and need. But, one day she disconnected. I couldn’t feel her the way I had always done since I first awoke. When I asked her, she denied anything was wrong—said I was foolish, that I was just suffering some sort of setback. But one night while sleeping, she let a thought slip out—a face, an image, a feeling. She had fallen in love with a man—a pathetic, awkward piece of flesh. I felt jealousy for the first time that night. So I followed her the next day, not letting her know what I had learned that night. She, of course, went to him, and they—they became one, like we were. I suddenly felt something new again—a feeling I could not describe. I found out later it was called anger. I attacked them—vicious and unstoppable. He was no match for my raw strength, and he paid the price for it. But she escaped—she ran—and I spent years searching for her. Every now and then I would feel her as I closed in on her location, but somehow she always knew when I was close and managed to disappear again.”

“D-D-Did you ever find her?”

He looks down at the table once more, studying his hands, his face empty, his lips trembling. “In a way, I did. Unfortunately, she had died. I am told it was quick—a heart attack in her sleep, apparently—painless, they said.”

She slowly reaches over and nervously grips his hand. “I-I-I-I— I’m so sorry. My mother passed the same way,” she says softly.

He looks up at her and smiles. “Don’t be sorry. You see, she had a daughter,” he says as his blue eyes sparkle in the light.

Like a God

“In the beginning, this was just a barren, empty space. Dying like the rest of this withered, void of a world. But that was before we—” he pauses and allows himself to smile. “But that was before I turned it into this paradise,” he says proudly, puffing out his chest with satisfaction.

“BEFORE YOU?” another man yells from the group. “Please tell me, just WHAT the fuck did you do? And believe me, your money is an irrelevant issue, Stapleton. I say that because when we came to you, we already had a working sample of the compound. YOU only funded the next stage, and anyone could’ve done THAT!” He pushes his way out of the group, storming up to Stapleton and pointing a bony finger into his chest. “You have no right to take credit for any of this. We”—he gestures to the others—”WE did this! WE harnessed the very fabric of life. WE designed the genome that, when infused into a dead cell, repairs and replicates the cell’s original form. It not only brings the dead cells back to life, but it effectively creates a whole new cell out of nothing! YOU, sir, are not w—”

His words stick in his throat as Stapleton grips him tightly around the neck.

“HOW DARE YOU, CHARLES!” he yells, tightening his grip. “HOW DARE YOU INTERRUPT MY CROWNING MOMENT!” He hisses through clenched teeth, staring into Charles’s eyes as capillaries explode, flooding the whites of his eyes with red. “YOU, Charles, had your moment in the sun, and I have rewarded it with riches. I have moved mountains so you could have what you need for your ridiculous experiments. I have given you more for your research than anyone else would ever commit. I am a god, and you will treat me as SUCH!” he yells, throwing a gasping Charles to the ground. Slowly, Stapleton crouches down beside him.

“Now, Charles, just so you understand, if I had no need for you—if I had some other monkey who could turn all the knobs and flick all the switches you already know how to flick—you would be dead. So thank me, and choose another to take your place,” he says with a smile on his face.

“W-W-What?” Charles stammers as he tries to swallow.

“It’s a simple question, Charles. I need you, but these others”—Stapleton gestures casually towards them—”these nobodies are interchangeable, replaceable tools who serve only to assist the true mind in your hive of creativity: you. So choose who will die. Choose, so I can satisfy my need to inflict punishment on you. Otherwise, I’m just not sure what I’m going to do—or who I will kill—and you don’t want me choosing who to sacrifice, do you?” His smile broadens, twisting across his face like a snake, while the others watch on in horror.

Fear Is the Key

“Pots and pans, sticks and stones, words to taunt, knives to hunt, to cut, to kill. All these things, they will not hurt me. All these things, they will not kill me. For all these things will only make me stronger, they’ll only feed my strength, my power, my will!” he growls as he leaps from shadow to shadow down the corridor, a broad deranged smile upon his face.

“Hiding is a waste of your time, you know I’ll find you, you know you can’t run forever. Eventually, sooner than you think, I’ll introduce you to the light, and suck you empty of your poor misguided soul to feed my endless march through this world!” he says as drool drips from his mouth—thick like raspberry jam. He stops and sniffs the air like an animal, slowly looking over his shoulder.

“There you all are,” he says, his voice now much deeper, more menacing. He leaps to the ceiling, hanging from it as if he’d somehow changed the very laws of gravity itself, then begins to crawl like an insect towards his quarry. He lets out a high-pitched scream—which drifts off into nothingness—as something tears into his stomach. For what feels like an eternity, everything stops. Then, with sudden force, something is torn from him, and he collapses into a heap.

No sooner has he hit the ground than he is surrounded by a small group of kids, the oldest no more than twelve.

“You don’t have any power over us anymore, we’re not afraid of you,” a boy says, as he steps forward, brandishing a large metal pole with a knife taped to its end, a sticky black substance dripping from it.

“You fucking kids think you really have the balls to stop me?” he says as he uneasily gets to his feet, clutching his stomach as the same black liquid from the boy’s blade slowly seeps out from beneath his tightly clenched hand.

“W-We, we know how you get your strength! We know you draw it from the fear you spread, it feeds you, b-b-but we—w-w-we don’t fear you ANYMORE!” the boy yells as they all charge at him with their crudely thrown together weapons, stabbing and hitting him. Their attack is unrelenting. It goes on for minutes, maybe longer, until he lies motionless on the ground before them in a pool of black liquid. They look around at each other, exhausted, but victorious.

“T-That’s for my little sisters, you bastard!” the boy screams as he drives the pole through the man’s skull, it hits the concrete floor with a clank, echoing down the corridor.

For some time they all stand around his remains, before finally slowly making their way down the long corridor. Once outside, the boy turns to the others and allows himself to smile, looking up into the sky as the sun shines through the clouds, spreading its warmth over him.

He feels a heavy hand rest upon his shoulder, and his body stiffens. Slowly, he turns, looking into the man’s bloodshot eyes.

“Do you think you five could really compare to the thousands that already feed my sin?” he says as the boy’s world turns black. He can hear the screams of his friends as they cry out in terror, and the fear—the fear that never ends—his fear, his cries, now become part of the beast’s forever engine.

Sisterly Love

She feels the tears run down her face, but the feelings of sadness no longer wash over her as they did days before, even though the tears still flow. The door to the small room opens, and a man in his early to mid-forties storms in, his light blue shirt stained in the armpits from excessive sweating, and his raggy facial hair looks unkempt. He slams a folder down onto the table in front of her and paces around the room, lights up a cigarette, and takes a long, deep drag on it.

“You’ve got to stop lying, Allison. Enough is enough!” he says, thrusting his fists into the table and leaning over towards her, the cigarette hanging from his mouth. “Where did you bury their bodies?”

“I to…”

He slams his fists into the table again—kicking the chair opposite her to the ground. “I’m sick and TIRED of hearing the same FUCKING story! I want the truth. Don’t they deserve it? Doesn’t your sister deserve the chance to grieve for her children? Don’t you owe her that much? Don’t you owe your husband that much?”

“I don’t OWE her anything. She’s the one who’s concocted this BULLSHIT story! SHE’S the one who laid the blame on me! I’VE done nothing wrong, Detective. I deserve my right to a fair hearing, so either charge me with their murders or let me the FUCK go! Or DO I have to get a lawyer here to make you play your hand?”

He clenches his fists tightly until they turn white, and stares sternly into her eyes. “You think this whole ‘I don’t need a lawyer’ shit proves you’re innocent? You think playing the wrongly accused sister, who never did anything wrong, grants you a free pass? I think you wanted revenge. I think you wanted your sister to pay for sleeping with your husband. I think you wanted to make her feel the pain you felt. I think you’re FUCKING guilty, and I’ll prove it,” he says gruffly.

She sits there, crosses her arms across her chest, and nervously smiles, leaning back in her chair. “Sarah slept with Nathan?” she says softly.

“Cut the FUCKING act, Allison. We know you confronted them at Medazines last week. You made a whole spectacle of it, threw a glass of wine in his face, and told Sarah you’d get even, you’d take everything she loved away. We’ve got a handful of witnesses who all say the same thing. It’s an open-and-shut case, so just stop doing this and allow your husband and nephews to be laid to rest properly instead of in some unmarked grave out in the middle of nowhere!”

She lets out an awkward laugh, arches her back, looks up at the interrogation room’s ceiling, then takes a deep breath and looks back to the detective. “It was Sarah who caused the scene at Medazines, detective. She was the one who was threatening me. She dated Nathan when we were all in college. They broke up when she went to live in Germany for a year. When she came back, we were together, and Sarah always hated me for it. That’s how she ended up with Michael. She was trying to get back at me by taking my best friend away, but when she fell pregnant, he convinced her they had to get married. When Michael died last summer, Sarah changed. She was lost and turned to Nathan for comfort. Last week she threw herself at him, and he knocked her back. She was pissed and blamed me for taking him away from her again. So, she came to the restaurant drunk, SHE threw the wine in Nathan’s face, and SHE was the one who threatened me!” Allison says, frustration seeping out in her words. The detective takes a step back, his eyes wide with disbelief.

“I-I-If what you’re saying is true, it mean…” his words trail off as he rushes from the room in a panic, leaving Allison alone. She shuffles in her chair and smiles to herself.

“I told you I’d ruin your life, sister,” Allison whispers under her breath as she stares at her reflection in the two-way mirror.

One Hell of a Story

“What lights the fire that burns beneath your arse?” he asks, leaning back in the armchair and taking a sip from his glass of port.

“Fire beneath me? A bit medieval of you, isn’t it, Thomas?”

“Oh, please, Donovan, don’t treat me like the enemy. I’m the father of your son’s wife—we’re family. I’m just curious. You’ve got this home, your cars, your fortune, you never seem to want for anything. How did you get the drive to do all this?” Thomas says, smiling as he takes another sip.

Donovan laughs uneasily before nervously taking a greedy mouthful of his drink. “If I told you the truth, you wouldn’t believe me,” he says, before emptying the remainder of the glass down his throat. He jumps to his feet and quickly makes his way over to a small bar, where he refills his glass.

“Why don’t you try me? I’m quite open to a good story.”

Donovan downs his fresh drink, then pours another, makes his way back to his seat, bringing the decanter with him, and places it on a table between them.

“T-T-Trust me, this isn’t your normal, far-fetched story—this is unbelievable. If I hadn’t witnessed it for myself, I’d say it was a lie,” Donovan says, emptying another glass and slamming it down on the table. With shaking hands, he grabs the decanter.

Thomas places a hand on his, his face showing concern. “Steady on, old man, this isn’t a race. I’m simply curious, is all. If you don’t want to talk about it, just say so,” he says with a reassuring smile.

Donovan stares at him for a few moments, before biting down on his bottom lip and leaning forward. “I’ve never told anyone this story, not a soul, not even Debbie,” he says as he sits back in his chair and stares into the fireplace, watching the flames dance about as if they were possessed by Fred Astaire himself. “It’d be close to thirty-two years now when I first met him. It was at a racetrack, he was down on his luck—apparently, he’d lost a shit load of cash and only had a fiver left to his name. I don’t remember how it happened, but we got to talking, and I started to feel for the poor bugger, so much so that I shared a tip I had on the big race of the day with him. He was ecstatic, and that became tenfold when the horse won by two lengths. We ended up celebrating until the early morning, and as we were finishing our last drink of the night, he turned to me and asked the downright weirdest question anyone has ever asked me. He asked, ‘What was the single thing I most desired in life?’ I didn’t even think about it before telling him I wanted to be successful so I could spend time with my family, who I hardly knew anymore. The guy smiled at me, shook my hand, and said tomorrow would be a grand day for me, then left,” he says, leaning back in his seat, nervously chewing on his fingernails.

Thomas looks at him, puzzled, and takes a sip of his port. “I-I-I don’t get it. How did that give you all this?”

“Before that night, I worked eleven hours a day, seven days a week. I missed Bert’s first three birthdays because we needed food on the table, and I worked fucking hard to make sure it was there, even if I wasn’t. Anyway, the next morning, I received a call from my boss telling me the company was shutting down immediately, and unfortunately, my job had been made redundant. He apologised profusely, swore he would make sure the company paid me every cent I was owed. I was gutted, withdrawn, and didn’t know what to tell Debbie. It was the worst feeling I’d ever experienced up to that point in my life,” he says, pausing to refill their drinks.

“And?” Thomas prompts.

“And that’s when the guy from the racetrack showed up at my door. Turns out his name was Patrick Horton, and he was the CEO of some upstart company called ImpeTec. He didn’t say much—just that he wanted to thank me for the kindness I’d shown him the night before by gifting me 50% of the company. He said the money he won from the horse race had helped him complete a significant piece of a puzzle he’d been working on for some time, and I deserved half of whatever came of it. At first, I had no idea what ImpeTec was, but when the news broke that night, everyone else in the world and I did, all at once…”

“They launched the first fully Artificial Intelligent Pleasure Doll, right?” Thomas says. Donovan nods his head and smiles.

“Too fucking right they did. I started receiving residuals the next day and every day since,” he says, taking another mouthful. “I haven’t worked a single fucking day in over thirty years, and that, my friend, is, as you say, the fire that burns in my belly.”

Thomas swallows the contents of his glass and stares wide-eyed at Donovan. “B-B-B-Bullshit?” he stutters.

“Well, you’re the one who said you enjoy a good story,” Donovan says as he begins to laugh loudly.

Infinity

They say when you die, everything you did in your life flashes before your eyes. All your sordid secrets, all your forgotten memories, everything flashes before your eyes, and then you die.

It’s a reassuring thing really, a kind of highlight reel to transition you from one journey to the next, be it upstairs, downstairs, or sometimes in between.

Now, none of us can accurately surmise what happens until it does. So, basically, all of what I’ve told you up to this point could just be bullshit, or on the other hand, it could be exactly what happens.

Where am I going with this, you ask?

I’m going to the truth. I’m going to tell you what I saw when I died. I know, I know, how is any of this possible? Just stay with me, and I’ll tell you.

But before I go into it all, I want to thank you for asking the question, mainly because I could have gone on for ages with more examples of what we, as mortal beings, think happens when we die.

Anyway, enough of all that. Let me get to the guts of the story. Let me get back to where I started, because your life flashing before your eyes is kinda on the right path—it’s just a little off-centre. You see, for me, it was Dolores Fillmore. She was my moment—what, or whoever, was out there—wanted me to see as I passed through one door and into the next.

Who was Dolores Fillmore?

She grew up next door to me. When we were kids, we played together. Heck, we even shared our first kiss. But as we grew up, we also grew apart, splintering off into different social groups, and it wasn’t until the night of her twenty-second birthday that I even had a real adult conversation with her. Unfortunately, it was also the last time anyone ever saw her alive.

For thirty-eight years, I kept the conversation a secret. Even when the police threatened to lock me up, I kept quiet, denying I had ever seen her that night. To be honest, I don’t think they ever believed me—especially the lead detective. He fucking hounded me for years, pegged me as the weird kid who lived next door, the one who had no tangible alibi, who was possibly seen talking to the missing girl on that night.

Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked again, lost in the whole story. You see, the thought of reliving the whole thing, as I have every moment since I passed, is almost impossible to shake. I guess you could call it the one sin that got me here in this place, reliving it over and over again.

I can see by the look on your face that you’re disgusted by me. That’s only because of what you saw me do to the Jones’ cat, isn’t it? I was curious. I wanted to know if it felt pain the way we do. You ran away, repulsed by what I had done. When I came to you that night, you were upset. You’d just found out your perfect boyfriend was cheating on you. It’s crazy how a few drinks can make everything clear.

At first, I wanted to explain it all, but you pushed me away. You told me you would tell everyone, and that’s when I hit you. The blood was like oxygen. I breathed it in and realised what I had done once the high had worn off.

For three days, you lay there, waiting for the right time to be moved. When I took you out to Helen’s Creek, I kissed you for the second time in my life, then let you go forever. You’d never rise again, but you’d always be with me, forever—for eternity—as I find myself watching you leave the house again to meet me once more for our date with destiny, for our dance in the infinity of creation.

A Thousand Words

“In the darkness of the night, he arose, seeking vengeance that only blood could quench. First, it would be the priest who opened the horrors of the world to him, then his parents, for they were the ones who turned a blind eye to the things done to him. All who had wronged him in life would pay with their blood, with their souls,” he reads aloud, his face firmly planted inside the book.

“Excuse me, Brian, but can I ask you to stop there for a moment,” an older man says as he pushes himself off the wall he was leaning against and walks to Brian’s side, turning to face the classroom. “The assignment that was asked of you was to complete an original piece of fiction that, once completed, would be read aloud to the class. Is that correct, Brian?” he asks.

“Y-Yes, Mister Hidgets,” Brian replies nervously.

“Yes, Mister Hidgets, sir,” Mister Hidgets says sternly.

“Y-Y-Yes, M-M-M, Mister Hidgets, s-s-si-sir.”

“Now, in my outline for this assignment, was there a subject matter listed that I did not want to be covered in any of the stories?”

“Y-Y-Yes, there was,” stammers Brian.

“Yes, there was, Mister Hidgets, SIR!” Mister Hidgets growls, his face glowing with anger.

“Y-Y-Yes, th-th-there wa-wa-was, Mister Hidgets, sir.”

“Good, good,” Mister Hidgets says as he walks behind Brian, grabbing him by the shoulders and squeezing them firmly. “Now Brian, can you, for everyone else’s benefit, tell me what the subject matter I did not want written about was?”

“I-I-It was horror, Mister Hidgets, sir,” Brian answers softly.

“LOUDER, BRIAN! So the rest of the class up the back can hear you!”

“HORROR, MISTER HIDGETS, SIR!” Brian yells out.

Mister Hidgets smiles. “Horror, yes, that was it. And now, please, pray tell, what is the subject matter of your piece of gutter trash?”

Brian clenches one of his hands into a fist and bites down on his bottom lip.

“Well, Brian, out with IT! What was the goddamn subject matter of the vile piece of garbage you just began to read out to the class?”

“IT IS A LOVE STORY, MISTER HIDGETS, SIR!” Brian yells out.

Mister Hidgets laughs as he squeezes down on Brian’s shoulders once more. “Come now, Brian, do you expect me to believe this trash is a love story?” he says, snatching the book from Brian’s hand. As he does, his face begins to pale. Horror seizes him, and with trembling hands, he looks up, only to meet Brian’s cold, smiling face.

“No, Mister Hidgets, SIR!” Brian says as he looks out towards the rest of the class, who stare on, captivated by the display. “But I’m sure you could let me get away with it, just this once?”

“I-I-I, ho-how, how could you?”

“Are you sure you really want me to go into that? I mean, honestly, I wanna ask questions myself. Like how flexible is Ma—”

“ENOUGH! My God, Brian! W-W-What, what do you want?” asks Mister Hidgets nervously, as Brian looks back at him, his eyes like hot daggers.

“Nothing yet—just thought I’d give you a preview. You know what they say about pictures painting a thousand words—well, I could write several books with the pictures I have,” he says as he snatches his book back from Mister Hidgets and strides to his seat. The rest of the class follows him with their eyes to his desk, then falls back onto Mister Hidgets, who nervously looks around at their faces, his bottom lip trembling, sweat pouring down his brow. His mouth opens and closes several times as if he were about to say something, but each time, nothing comes out.