Part 3 “Well, me and some friends liked to go to the house after school. We usually threw rocks, talked, and just hung out. The house had been deserted for close to a century. All the windows were broken out years – hell, decades – before I was born. One day when we were at the house, I saw the attic window intact. Not broken. Not shattered. Not even cracked. But as I watched my friends throwing rocks and saw that none of them were aiming at it, I knew they weren’t seeing what I was. I know it sounds crazy, but I got the feeling the house was trying to come between me and my friends. That pissed me off.” Unable to hold Emily’s skeptical gaze, Adrian looked into his cup as if the memory floated on the surface of his now bitter-tasting coffee. “I scanned the ground. And there, a step away, was what I was looking for. It was gray, the color of a weathered bone, and about the size of a bar of soap. The perfect rock. As soon as I picked it up, I felt the rightness of it. I knew it was meant for the attic window. So I threw it. I watched in anticipation as it tumbled through the air toward the glass.” Adrian pulled himself from the depths of the coffee and looked at Emily. His vision blurred as tears filled his eyes. “But the rock didn’t hit the glass. It didn’t hit … anything.” Emily sat up. “That’s because there was no glass. The rock went straight into the attic.” “No! It just stopped. In midair. A foot from the window and fell to the ground.” “That doesn’t –” “Make sense?” He took her hands in his. “I turned to my friends hoping they had seen what I had. But they were huddled around a cigarette, oblivious. I turned back to the window and saw a woman. I was mesmerized. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She walked closer to the window. So graceful. She seemed to float. She wore a thin dress. So thin, I could see, uh… Anyway, I was about to turn away when her hand came through the glass, palm out, gesturing for me to wait. Her head fell coyly to the side, and she curled her fingers in to make a fist. All except her forefinger. She left it extended and slowly waved it from side to side in a windshield wiper motion that said, ‘That was a no-no.’” “What did you do?” “I jumped on my bike and pedaled like hell. And I’ve never been back.” “But you do go back. “ “My nightmares take me back.” “Your dreams, about HER, take you back,” she said pulling her hands from his. “C’mon, Emily.” “How old were you?” “What?” “When you thought you saw all of this. How old were you?” “Fifteen.” “That sounds about right. You were in the developmental stage where you were striving for emotional separation from your parents. Any feelings of insecurity you had at the time would have made your subconscious naturally come up with something else to cling to.” “Subconscious? What happened that day was real. I watched that rock stop in midair. And I saw a woman in the attic window.” “No. The rock must have simply bounced off the window frame. And as for her, she’s nothing more than an image you constructed in your mind. Your idea of the perfect woman. And until you realize that’s all she is, we’re in trouble. Because there’s not room in this marriage for the three of us.” “Emily.” He gently squeezed her arm. “It’s not like that. Yes, I’ll admit she does have some kind of power over me. With that movement of her finger all those years ago, it’s like she flayed flesh from bone, opened me up, and planted a seed in my soul. But she is far from the perfect woman. And I don’t dream about her. I see her in nightmares. Nightmares where she is surrounded by pain and death. She floats above a wooden floor that’s stacked with bodies. Some are dead and decaying. Others are writhing in agony. Blood flows beneath her turning from red to black. And all around her there are bodies hanging from white ropes. None of it bothers her. She just smiles and crooks her finger issuing an invitation for me to join her. But I don’t. I know staying with her will kill me. So I run. I always choose life, my life here with you, over her.” He sighed and leaned back into the couch. The opening up had left him feeling empty. After a moment, Emily said, “Thanks for finally telling me.” “Thanks for listening. Do you think I’m crazy?” “No. I think you have some issues that need to be worked out.” “Well, I want us to work them out together.” He pulled her close. “You know what I said about her being the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen?” “Yeah.” “That was before I met you.” The phone woke them the next morning. Adrian emerged from under the comforter and looked at the wall clock. He shook his head in denial of what the hands were pointing out. He picked the phone up on the fifth ring and held it six inches from his ear as his boss explained that he was now his ex-boss. “Don’t worry about it.” Emily rose from the couch, yawned, and stretched. “Today, we’re starting over. Might as well add a new job to the list.” “What are you talking about?” “It’s time you see it’s just a house and realize that your woman in the attic window is nothing more than a leftover construct of your hormone-driven, fifteen-year-old imagination. It’s time for you to go back to Mt. Windsor.” “I-I can’t go back there.” “Sure you can. I’m coming with you.” Adrian enjoyed road trips. But only when they took him farther away from Mt. Windsor. He bribed, protested, and lied, but Emily wouldn’t take no for an answer. After showering and eating a wordless lunch, they left. A gray wind whipped through Adrian’s open window. The air was thick and hard to breathe. The sun hid behind heavy clouds whose only movement appeared to be oppressively downward. The scenery had been painted with a fat, dull brush. Colors were at a loss, blended together. Defining lines were perverted in the obscured afternoon sunlight, turning everything gray.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 22:05:24 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015