#thecalm

What surprised me was, I was actually scared. It had been a long time since someone had the nerve to approach the house this closely. So I walked slowly to the front door, trying to make as less noise as possible. Anything to not let my presence be betrayed.

On the wall in the hallway I noticed some new graffiti, someone trying to leave their mark. Oh yes, in the past months the house has been badly vandalized. Over and over again. As if no one was living there at all. 

And after a while, the people in town started making up stories about the house being haunted. It was said that anyone who dared to enter it would be cursed. I would have known, of course, if the house was really haunted. I was living in it. But that didn’t keep people from breaking in and taking a look around.

Two eople stumbling in wearing ragged clothes, eyes sunken deep into their sockets. Making their way up the stairs, skipping the steps that looked too rotten to handle the weight. Then finding their way onto one of the mattresses that were left in the second bedroom. The shards of the windows broken by The Flood made use as little tables to rack up lines of whatever substance they could find. One of them always brought a zero dollar bill to use as a sniffer. They were two of the same, being reckless with amounts and chasing death itself. She prepped the drug. Four lines, half a centimeter wide, as long as the longest glass shard she could find, then looked at him doubtingly. But he grinned, then did two. Took out his hairband to let his dreadlocks float over the pillow cover as he leaned back onto the bed. Darkness made them travel through infinite galaxies, made them feel like they were everywhere at once and nowhere all the same. She put her head on his chest and wrapped her arm around him. He returned the favor and kissed her forehead lightly. They were chasing death but they had never felt so alive.

Then that boy, who seemed to have found a key somewhere. He entered through the front door. Checking every room, he knew that he strayed from the path and got lost. This wasn’t where he was supposed to be. But then why did the key fit? Why did he keep coming back? Is it possible that he was starting to feel home in this sad excuse for a house? Paint dripped onto the floors and I couldn’t make out what he was trying to create. It didn’t make sense to me. Then one day he hung up a UV-lamp on the wall above where the fridge used to be and darkened the rooms. He put covers over every crack of light he could find. Then he turned on the lamp and I saw beauty in 2D, painted in my kitchen. A landscape so rich yet so modest, a house by the sea far away from here. The place where he really wanted to be.

I wondered why they didn’t notice me looking at them, these people. And that’s when I realized that the house had been haunted after all.

I used to be good at putting my feelings into words.

I used to be able to connect every wire inside my brain and feel the nuances of every emotion, then pick up my pen and write them into letters that no one would ever read.

I used to.

But then came The Big Storm and I caught myself in the eye of it.

I lost myself in the adrenaline given off by the sound of the wind and the roaring leaves.

People screaming.

Car alarms sounding.

Hypnotizing.

Mesmerizing.

It was as if nothing could touch me.

Nothing but The Storm.

It tore the wiring of my brain and crippled me in ways that I never thought were possible. It broke me until I no longer had a voice, couldn't move, couldn't think.

It blew me away, but leaving was never an option.

Nothing could replace the rush that I felt standing in that open field, tears of bliss rolling over my cheeks while I stared at what I was sure would someday be the death of me. No attempt at describing this feeling will ever do it justice.

So when it finally passed it left me with the wreckage of what I once thought I knew. Everything was completely destroyed.

I tried rebuilding the house and I bought a new car, trying to erase every hint that a storm ever came through.

It never felt the same.

At first glance you wouldn't even notice that there was anyting wrong with it though. It still stood upright. I fixed the roof that one night in august when my friends came over.

If you wanted to know the story you had to look at the tiny details. So easily overlooked. Like the leaking faucets and the little cracks in the tub standing in the master bathroom.

Some doors still don't close. I don't think I'll ever get used to the creaking of my bedroom floor.

All these little things got to my head and I ran as far as I possibly could.

To a place where I knew it would never rain. Where ligntning strikes were merely traffic cams flashing speeders on the main roads. Where the rumbling thunder was the falling of a kitchen pot in the appartment next door.

Where everything felt the way it should.

But the day I went back home, there was The Flood.

My parents seemed to have abandoned the place around the same time that I had. My mom always promised me that she'd look after it a bit while I was gone. But empty promises didn't surprise my anymore. They were all that was left by what I once adored.

I didn't know what to expect when I put my key into the lock. I felt the bolts slide away as I turned it, suddenly asking myself if I really wanted to return to the place that I saw as the core of my misery.

Push through.

Entering the hallway, there were some puddles here and there. I didn't think too much of it. After inspecting the rest of the house I decided they must've been caused by the leaking faucets, knowing full well that they could never be the cause of puddles that size.

The wallpaper started coming loose. The message my grandmother wrote on my bedroom wall when I was 12 was showing. I could almost see her standing on that ladder again, trying her best to glue the strips to my walls without letting any air get underneath. Then later standing in the middle of the room to admire her work. What a difference with how it looks now, fully decayed. But with that message on the wall the memory stayed.

The batteries of the doorbell weren't working anymore. Not that there was any reason for people to come by. So why did I?

Whas I this desperate to revisit my past self? To drag myself down memory lane and let it all break me over and over again? What was I torturing myself for? Did I deserve to feel like this for good? Did I really deserve the oncoming flood?

I didn't want to stay but I couldn't leave. When I ran back outside I noticed the street in front of my house stood completely blank. That new car I bought would never make it through.

It was all over the news.

I started wearing boots everywhere I went to keep my feet from getting wet. It kept raining and raining and soon enough the water had climbed well over the riverbanks.

So I started barricading the house with everything I could find and carry. I watched the water creeping closer to the house. There was nothing I could do.

Where The Big Storm was pure ecstasy,

The Flood induced anxiety.

Nothing was ever enough to stop the water from reaching the house, no matter how hard I tried.

So I fell to my knees in the puddles in the living room and let it slowly take me over.

Water breaking through the cracks in the walls.

Release.

The glass started to rattle in the window panes. Was this nature? Or simply something fabricated by man? Would I ever find out?

Break through.

Release.

Where first was air, there was now water. It was all I could see, all I could feel, all I could hear.

Breathe in.

Release.

The end.

No more fighting against the forces of things I couldn't explain.

Release.

Multicolor pain.

But then the sounds of the machines forced me awake.

I was told I went out swimming and someone found me face-down in the lake.

Had it been a dream? It felt so real.

Where was I?

Who am I now?

Rewire.

Reality hit like the lightning strikes I was so desperate to avoid.

I was nothing, no one, made up.

I never fixed the house, just learned to live in the wreckage The Storm had left me with. The Flood had taken advantage of the bad foundations that I'd hurrily hammered down. To make me think it was something more than what it really was.

I had fallen asleep near the lake and no one could wake me up.

By the time that help arrived it was already too late.

So they let me float away.

Or are these the lies he tells himself? How can he live with himself after leaving me there to die? How can he bear the thought of killing what he once held so dear? Or was that the lie after all?

The real shame lies in me ever believing I could handle the water coming at me.

So I still live in that same house with the creaking floors and leaking faucets.

The batteries of the door bell still need to be replaced.

But I repainted and I replaced the old wallpaper. The same color as before, a tribute to my grandmother.

Even though the damage still clearly shows, it kind of looks okay.

There's a knock at my door, someone's looking through the blinds to catch a glimpse of what's inside.

Is there anywhere I can hide?

I hope this poorly made reconstruction of what once was won't scare him away.