The hot water flowing over my battered body is a mercy.
How I got the bruises is a murky haze. I remember…I…
The silver dog tags hanging from a chain around my neck are speckled with clear water. The name on that tags read, “Culpepper, I. S.” I suppose that must be me, but I can’t seem to quite remember what the “I” stands for. Something long. Ig…Iggy? That’s short. Is it short?
My hair is short. No, it’s long, reaching past my ears. When did that happen? I don’t believe I ever let it get this long.
I don’t recognize the brand of shower gel I’m using. The bottle is blue, and there is a squid-like creature smiling behind its tentacled face on the logo (“Dqon lvbcrld jxcufb wdfkzdikke qugxwxfp!”). The soap is thick, like tar, vivid blue, smells like blueberries, and makes my dry, chapped skin feel amazing.
It burns across a place on my upper left shoulder. There is a picture in my skin, swollen and raw, of an orange circle, on which is something like an ace of spade or spearpoint, on which is an anchor, on which is a globe, on which is an eagle.
On my right bicep is something like a jolly roger, but the crossbones are a dagger and oar, and the whole thing sits on top of a wing on one side and a diver on the other.
On the finger between my left pinkie and middle finger, there is a blueish band with “Semper Fidelus” written in a sideways figure eight.
On my upper left chest, above my heart, are jagged words, carved with a bayonet, “DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR.”
They don’t look natural, but they’re in my skin. They don’t scrub away, no matter how long or how hard I wash them. I don’t know what they mean, but the one of my left shoulder burns and stings, like sunburn, red and inflamed.
I turn the shower off and dry myself with a towel, gently brushing the sore spot. The clothes, I took from the house, soft flannel pajama pants and a short-sleeved shirt with a cute, insect-like creature holding a snack food box (“Ghzjd-Ygdvg!”). I don’t know what it means, either, but it’s soft, warm, and covers my body.
The house is quiet, no sounds of televisions or chatter. There should be at least three people living here, a man, a woman, and a teenage boy. I am not one of them.
I know there is a woman here, because I found her clothes and makeup. She dresses sharply for work, a high-level position, requiring heels and jewelry. Hers is probably the luxury car in the garage, of no make or model I can identify.
I know there is a man here, for the same reason. His clothes are less authoritative, but still for a decently-paying job, probably lower management of a company or business. His car is the smaller, more practical one. He wears glasses for reading, tucked inside the bedside drawer.
The boy likes music. His room is full of expensive sound equipment, but no records or CDs. I don’t know the bands taped to his walls, and none of the posters have words. The computer he mixes his music on can’t connect to the internet, and the words are in that same alien gibberish as the shampoo bottle.
I’ve already spent the night here. I should have been arrested by now. The woman would have come downstairs, hastily putting on makeup, and found me shoulder-deep into a refrigerator, trying to find something edible. The man would have walked in from the garage, loosening his tie, to find me asleep on the couch. The boy would have walked into his bedroom, finding me trying on his clothes.
None of these things happened, but they should have. There is food in the fridge, clothes in the laundry, personal effects strewn across vanities. A living person should have found me, and I would have been grateful for it, even as they snapped the handcuffs around my wrists, because it least it would mean other people exist.
I pulled the clothes I’m wearing straight from the dryer. They feel crisp and clean, not straight from the dryer clean, but straight out of the package, as if someone purchased them new and through them straight in the dryer. The shampoo bottle didn’t have plastic cellophane holding down the cap, but it was full. The lipstick’s seal was broken, but the paste inside had never been touched.
The last house I stayed in was like that, everything set out as if people live there, but nothing actually used or worn. The house before that was the same way, and the one before that. Three weeks on, and the houses keep going, different models, but that same endless suburbia with no people in it.
The eeriest was the house that was having a cookout. The grill was out, full of fresh charcoal, still warm, as if waiting for hot dogs and hamburgers, cool inside the fridge. The cooler was full of ice, with sodas in brands I didn’t recognize and flavors I couldn’t identify. Banners were strung up, and balloons. Deck chairs had been arranged tastefully.
I felt like the first person to arrive at the party, and half-expected the woman of the house, a tacky thing in stretch pants and too-big earrings, to come outside and offer me a glass of sweet tea while I waited for the rest of the guests, her painfully uncool husband in a “kiss the cook” apron just a step behind.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
But it never happened.
That was three weeks ago, and I still haven’t seen a living person.
After a shower, I go through the kitchen, looking for food in the usual places. What is considered “food” here can be…a bit hit or miss. It doesn’t help that I can’t read the labels on anything. I’ve found live starfish crawling around in freezer bags, cricket legs longer than my arm, canned eyeballs, and even canned eyeballs medley.
Sleepy, bone-weary, and a touch nauseous, the best-looking thing I find is a box of microwavable macaroni pushpops, cut with something that looks like imitation crab meat and shrimp, but the character on the box looks like some sort of cartoonish deep sea kaiju (“%100 Uktr-Liotv Gdu Mokwh!”).
I place a few on a plate, guestimating the time and settings since I can’t read the instructions. They smell good enough, don’t taste too bad, and I settle in on the couch for lunch and a nap.
Getting comfortable is difficult. Nothing feels right, the beds seem voyeuristic and the couch is too lumpy in all the wrong spots from throw pillows and armrests. Half the time I wake up in a seated position, half-remember dreams about explosions and loud noises still ringing in my head.
There’s usually a girl, a woman. She’s sitting beside me, and her smile is my everything.
And then I wake up to the sound of thunder clapping, my hands twitching, cold sweat running down my back.
It’s always thunder, because it’s always overcast and stormy. The skies are steel gray and cold, bright sparks of lightning flashing in the distance, followed by the low rumble of thunder. Day or night, it doesn’t matter, the same semi-winter, almost-sleet storm.
It makes it hard to want to move on. Despite the cold, most of the houses are outfitted for summer, all short sleeves and bathing suits, nothing heavier than a windbreaker to be found.
I suppose I could pick one nice house. The freezer food could keep me for awhile, that’s true, but the longer I’m in one spot the more I’m afraid the homeowners are going to come home to find me wearing their clothes and wrapped up in a blanket on their couch.
Which, I suppose, wouldn’t be so awful. If they did come home, I’d at least know there were more people in the world, and being arrested would make for a nice change of pace.
What I’ve been doing for three weeks is raiding homes for supplies and food, then moving on to the next house, often using my breaking an entering rock, currently seated next to me on the couch, watching the dead static on the television.
Three weeks of this. Three weeks of no people, no noise, and endless stormy skies. Three weeks of sleeping in strangers’ beds and couches, wearing their clothes, and rifling through their valuables for something useful or at least mildly entertaining.
I curl on the couch, under a flannel blanket, watching the hypnotic static of the television and listening to the patter of frozen rain, trying to slow my heart and calm my thoughts.
The knocking invades my dreams of engine exhaust and sunlight glinting off glass, persistent but polite. I shake my head out of sleep and hear it again, definitely not dreaming.
Fear and exhilaration grip my chest so tight it’s hard to breathe. A noise, not made by me! A sign of life! Am I…am I about to be arrested for breaking and entering?
I grab my rock and cautiously approach the front door, taking note of the nighttime ambiance on the other side of the blinds. Someone knocking after dark is rarely a good thing, especially if it isn’t your house and you’re not supposed to be there.
My footsteps are soft, just in case the person is listening on the other side. Better to keep the element of surprise, make them think the house is empty if it’s another break-in. If it’s police, I’ll turn myself in willingly, but the three weeks of silence and isolation is making me jumpy about man-made noises.
The door opens without a squeak, the silence on the orange-lit streets nearly deafening, no birds, no insects, no people.
None.
The street is as bare and sterile as it was when I broke in this morning, as silent and still as a tomb.
I must be losing it. Three weeks of silence will have an effect, I suppose. Maybe I woke myself up, dreaming too deeply, but I could swear I heard it even after I sat up.
The chill wind blows around my bare ankles, stripping my skin raw. The sleet-like rain pricks against my face. There is no noise but the weather.
Despite the eerie stillness, and the jagged hole in the window that a rock went through, I make sure to lock the door tightly, twisting the brass latch as far as it will go, and then stumble back to the couch, drawing the blanket over me to stop the shivering.
The silence weighs heavy on my ears, Bae the rock cool under my chin. I don’t sleep for the rest of the night.
What's the most liminal?
