Twist

Okay, here's the twisted bit. Most of the time, no one knows that anything is wrong. So in that sense, this dark charachter, the one of which I do not tend to speak, is looming in the shadows - not invisible persay, just - out of sight. Nonetheless, I can feel his presence - yes, his. Is that surprising? Anything sinister is a "Him" in my book. The one that stays closed in the deep recesses of my psyche. And its my psyche we are exploring anyhow. So, anyhow, Him.

You can't see him, persay, but if you are perceptive, you will feel him, a darkening about the edges, the curtains stained by the sent of his presence, the lasting ochre silence of his hands clenched about my shoulders.

Now, this is where is gets interesting. When I was a child, my sister and I loved to trick people into believing I had wires surgically embeded in my shoulders. People would think we were being maudlin and silly until they actually put a hand to touch me. Running outward from my neck on each side to touch the tip of my thin shoulder was a line of tension pulled so taut it felt inhuman. They would belive us. We were delighted.

Even then, at the age of seven or eight, he held the other end of the wire.

Did you catch his voice? A humming, rattling in the next room. No, nothing, just the quiet noise of the motor running in the refrigerator. White noise. White noice that tints a room grey. Forboding.

If you were to see him, imagine him as the man from my dream. The one that came into the room, slowly around the door.

The one I thought was my father, but as I strained to force my eyes open, found I was paralized, deep in thick grog, could barely see through my blurry lidded eyes. His face was blue as paint, white streaks running down from his eyes, vivid as burning. And as I lay paralized on the bed - not my father - he walked slowly to me, lay his hands on the back of my neck. The energy ran through my body, voltage unmaneagable, vibration, terror, lightning. I fought to wake. I couldn't. Relax into it, I thought, this is how to slow the terror in dreams. Relax, just accept, relax. But that only let him farther in, the energy shrieking up a higher octive. Not a Dream. Fuck, fight it off. WAKE UP. And I did. Forced my eyelids open, a hundred pound each. In the same bed, in the same room, the same light. But he was gone.

@wabisabi