Content warning: PTSD, Anxiety, Depression, Eating Disorder
I woke the body up before the wretched sound of the alarm could signal the new day. I turned the alarm off preemptively and sluggishly sat up. The body’s heart was beating too slowly for being awake. I looked around the unfamiliar room. It was a mess. Worse than most I’d seen. There were a dozen empty soda cans by the bed, at least five plates beneath them, and clothes strewn about the floor. Books rested open on the ground next to a guitar with rusted strings. One of them was waving wildly around as the fan overhead moved the air just enough to circulate the awful stench coming from the place. There were several candles hiding beneath the junk on the desk, but it looked like each had only been lit once before being buried. The carpet was matted and, if I looked too close, fuzzy and green.
There was no food in the fridge. There were post-it notes on the fridge. “Remember.” On top of that, “Remember.” On top of that, “REMEMBER.” On top of that, “forget it.” I was thirsty. I grabbed the black water bottle by their bed. Their water tasted funny. I thought to pour myself a new bottle. I emptied the old water into the sink and a glob of slimy mold fell onto the drain. It stared at me as if I had offended it by evicting it from its home. I vomited on top of it. Collecting myself, I cleaned up the mess and poured water into a cracked glass. It got their hands wet as I drank, and they shook with effort as I held it to my lips.
The bathroom mirror was covered in dust and marker. “I am beautiful,” written over and over in worse and worse handwriting until it began to look more like a prayer than a statement. In that mirror, I could just make out a frail corpse of a person, with eyes like pits and teeth like lemons. I smiled. It was horrifying. I felt sorry for them. No one deserved this.
Cleaning the mirror was easy. Their eyes were bloodshot by the time I finished. I was tired. Exhausted. I hadn’t done anything yet, today. But I could barely move. My stomach roared. I was hungry. But there was no food in the house. So I ordered food from an app on their phone. “That’ll teach them to call a suffering man names,” I thought. And when the food arrived, I tore through it like I’d never eaten before in my life. Still I was hungry. And thirsty. So I drank from the cracked glass and decided to wait just a little before having more to eat.
I took a trash bag into the room and filled it. Then another. Then another. At least five trash bags and at least a dozen passes with the broom. This body had more friends than I thought, counting all the critters I found hiding. Some of them were dead. I could relate to their problem.
Still the room was dirty. I recycled all of the cans. Originally, I stomped on each one to make them smaller. I was wheezing by the third stomp. I placed the rest gently in the bin. I took the plates into the kitchen. There were no crumbs on any of them, but there was a mouse hole below the nightstand. I wondered if the body used to have food in the fridge, or if they put the food they ordered on a plate.
Some of the laundry went into the trash. Some pants had mold and some shirts had holes gnawed into them. I wondered if fabric tasted good. The rest of the laundry went into the machine. It was loud, so loud that I felt the body start crying and couldn’t stop it until I plugged its ears. I rushed out of the room like there was a demon in it. A moment ago, there was.
I ordered groceries to put in the fridge, and while it was on the way I cleaned the water bottle. I wasn’t sure I would ever feel comfortable drinking out of it, but the good news was I didn’t have to be. The body did. And I got the sense it would. The fridge had to be wiped down first, but that only dampened the odor coming from it. It was as clean as it was going to get. I put the groceries away. It was mostly easy things. Chicken nuggets, tuna, sandwich meat, sliced cheese. With how much the body was trembling with effort, I doubted it would want to make food. At least, this way, it was easier.
I didn’t know how to restring a guitar. I doubted they had a spare set of strings. So I put the weathered instrument nicely on its stand and hoped that, someday, the body would learn how to fix it. I was sure it sounded beautiful. I remembered how to play it, but didn’t know if I was any good. It had been so long since I tried.
I turned on the bathroom faucet and put my hand under the water till it was a nice temperature. I turned on the showerhead and listened to the water fall like rain. I saw the body in the clean mirror. I hated it. I hated the bones I could see protruding from the skin. I hated the grime I could see built up beneath its arms. I hated the ball of lint I could see in its belly button. I grabbed the body’s tangled hair in distress. I felt it taking hold, wrestling control. It did not want to go in the water. There was something bad about the water. Something bad had happened in the water. Something bad had happened in the body. It needed to run. I needed to run.
Outside the bathroom door, I could still hear the water fall like rain. Through the door, it was peaceful. I’d always liked storms. I knew the body needed to be clean. Maybe, if I thought of the rain and did not look at the mirror, the body would be okay. I closed their eyes and opened the door. I felt the humidity on their cracked skin, and the tile froze their feet with every step. I felt for the wall and found it, felt for the curtain and found it, felt for the water and touched it, and stepped inside. The body loved the rain. The curtain blocked the mirror from view. I opened their eyes.
When I scrubbed shampoo into their hair my hands came away covered in soaking strands. I put it in a pile in the corner so it wouldn’t clog the drain. When I combed conditioner through the ends I came away with just as much. I added it to the pile. A lizard peeked out of the drain at me as if offended I had disturbed its home. It scampered up the wall and watched me as I cleaned the body. It took three washes of soap.
I should have checked the towel on the rack before stepping in the rain, but it slipped my mind. It, of course, was nearly disintegrating with how long it had sat there in damp conditions without being cleaned. Instead, I wrung the water off the body myself and stood humming in the empty shower for five or ten minutes until the body dried a bit. They had a nice voice. I could feel the echo of the music in their chest and it made me feel good.
I put on clothes that smelled less bad than the others and ordered myself another meal. This time, I ordered water as well, so I could drink it out of a styrofoam cup instead of a cracked glass. I devoured the food and the body’s hands shook a bit less. I ate over a plate, so I wouldn’t get crumbs on the floor. I left it on the table when I was done.
I don’t think the bedsheets had ever been washed. I couldn’t bring myself to wash them, though. To wash them meant to go back into the same room as the machine. But I had to put the clothes in the dryer. And there were more clothes to clean. The bedsheets just wouldn’t get washed. If I was still here tomorrow, maybe I would get to it then. For now, I could make the bed. Currently, it was a bundle of blankets in a small corner of a large mattress. There were a dozen stuffed animals on the bed and at least five mechanical pencils that were loose between the blankets. I brushed the crumbs off the fitted sheet and laid the blankets nicely on top. The body wanted to lay down. I knew that if the body laid down, I would have to leave. Who knew when I’d be back? It wasn’t time to go just yet.
I took their phone and opened up messages. They hadn’t texted their mom in a while. Or their dad. Or their siblings. Their family hadn’t texted them, either. Their friends had, though. “Are you doing alright?” “Do you want to come to the party on Saturday?” “I heard about what happened.” “How’s it hanging, man?” “We missed you at the party on Saturday.” “Let me know if there’s anything you need.” I messaged back, “I’m doing alright, thanks.” “Sorry I missed the party.” “I’m doing alright, now.” “Everything’s good with me, how about you?” “Sorry I missed the party.” “I’m doing fine, thanks.”
They got a couple of responses, but I was too nervous to read them. At least their friends knew they still cared. I set their alarm for the next day. It was still early evening, but if I didn’t do it now, I’d forget later.
I ordered food one more time. I didn’t want to waste the food in the fridge. I ate it more slowly this time, and the last bite stared at me for thirty minutes before I got the body to choke it down. I didn’t have the energy to put this plate away, either. Eating three meals in a day might have been too much. Surely the body wouldn’t appreciate the extra weight.
I put a new load of laundry in the machine. This time, I plugged the body’s ears before I pressed the start button and ran out of the room. That was a little bit better. I changed into a pair of dry pajamas that had a softness unlike anything I’d felt in this decaying house. There was one spot, though, that was prickly, a sticky substance that wouldn’t come out all the way still stuck in the plaid of the pants. I lit a couple of the candles on the desk, and the fan began to blow cinnamon and spring into the room. I looked around the room, satisfied with my work. I finished up the laundry, putting it in a pile on the newly vacuumed carpet. I would have folded the clothes, but I could barely keep their eyes open. I put out the candles and crawled into bed. I felt intense relief, as if the body had run a marathon and then done a thousand squats.
I woke up the next morning feeling like I had decorated my coffin. There was no energy. There was no brightness. There was no drive. There was no body. There was only a prison. There was only the water. There was only the monster. I was hungry. There was no food in the house.
…I would have to leave my bed to get to them.
There was no food in the house.
