Confession
At night they come to life…
They crawl down the tower, cloaked in the shadow of darkness, keeping to the edges of perception like some long forgotten evil at the corners of your mind. They seek me out, I hear them scratching at the door, and before I know it they’re here, inside my head. They claw their way inside and burrow deep inside my darkest secrets. They reach within my soul and find the inky blackness that I hide from everyone. They bring it all to the surface and make me do things. Things that I would never do. Except, in my heart, I’ve done them a thousand times.
Oh, the deeds they make me do… The blood, the violence, the violation. I beg my memory to forget, but it’s all so clear to me, laid out before my recollections in a perfect vision of ecstatic depravation.
Each night I wash the blood from my hands, but as I wake it still remains. I am stained, wholly and utterly, and no amount of water can ever cleanse my soul.
The uniformed man leans over the table that separates us. I can see the horror and the disbelief in his eyes.
“One more time, for the tape, tell us what happened on the evening of the fourth…”
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve told him now… I know I have no real defence… And so I begin again…
“At night they come to life…”
Christopher L. Jorgensen
I love reading stories about cats! Mine does this all the time. Crawls into my bed “cloaked in the shadow of darkness,” only to maul my face. I try to ignore her, or lock her out of the bedroom, but then there’s “scratching at the door.” She makes me do things I would never do as well, like scratch her belly.
And one time, I did step on her. She was trying to get out of my way, but instead got in my way. Next time she’ll hide, or leave me a surprise beside my bed, “stained, wholly and utterly, and no amount of water can ever cleanse” my carpet.
christopher….
p.s. this site is cool. Thanks for sending me this way!
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Nicolas Papaconstantinou
I… think this is one of my favourite comments ever.
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Nicolas Papaconstantinou
Cool first piece, Mr Sharman! A bit gothic horror, almost Lovecraftian, with a kind of soft-twist ending built into the structure.
Welcome aboard!
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Andrew Cheverton
Nice debut, Ian. I’m not going to be able to walk past those stone faces again without keeping a close eye on them…
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