Sara Buckley | Prose

The day my roommate moved out, she told me she had always seen them. Lingering in the corners of our flat. She just didn’t want to upset me by saying so. “Or rile them up” she teases as a final goodbye. I laugh obligingly in her wake. They laugh too. Delighting in her final acknowledgment, in the power it imbued in them. 

This cannot continue. 

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Sleep is a stranger that night. I keep the apartment glowing and lie down, the wooden floor cold on my cheek. Watching the light slowly dawdle in. The barren rooms creak and moan, a gurgling stomach digesting its prey. I curl up taut. My bladder whinges in protest, still I wait for the sun. There is safety in the light. It is my final refuge. 

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The shadows grow longer, infestation sets in as the days pass. 

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I hear knocking at the door. First soft and light, then pounding, ricocheting through my skull. Sometimes I hear whispers, but they’re indistinct. Always just out of reach. I know I must move with the light. I try to recall the last time I ate but feel no familiar pangs of hunger. My body has hollowed. My limbs buzz with white noise. My bladder has long since ceased its clamouring. Memories and dreams form a congealed blob that rolls around my brain, gathering dust as it goes. Lost in a nostalgic haze. 

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I leave in daylight. There are marks on the door, scratches etched deep into the varnish, cutting through to its skeleton. I leave it ajar knowing I will never return. Outside the sun blinds me. I stop at a ditsy café and the waitress wordlessly brings me a coffee. She leans in close as she places it on the table, her limp ponytail brushing the back of my hand. Her face distorted by an unnatural grimace. I glance away and am alone again, sitting static watching the masses muddle on. In the window opposite a petrified porcelain doll on display meets my eyes. Pins and needles run down my arms. My hair forms a pillow on the table. 

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The passage of time marked only by the warmth of the sun shifting on my skin. 

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I stand outside the train station. The wind rushes past me, snapping spitefully at any exposed skin. There is a train lingering on the platform, spilling brilliant white light out into the night and beckoning me inward. The light cuts through my vision, enveloping me. The seat has dried gum on its muddled green exterior. It prickles under my palms. I ride to the end, till the lights dim and the speakers bid me disembark. 

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The train whistle pierces through the dawn. 

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I walk through a garden in full bloom. A man nods at me as I skirt by, a trowel in one hand, bloody tea towel in the other. An object wrapped tightly in its gingham depths. His hands are large and calloused but there’s tenderness in his grip. He bends over the flowerbeds and produces a St Brigid’s cross from his apron. The rushes are an enticing green and there’s care imbued in every woven strand. Church bells ring out in the distance. The sun elicits beads of sweat on his brow and mine. A reminder that I must keep moving to stay within its beams. 

I hop the fence and walk on. 

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Through fields and ditches. A farmer’s maze carefully cultivated to distract him from his ailing mother. It stands just three feet tall and winds around his house. He fusses over it, trimming with intense precision. She watches from the window. Jaw set. A ball of red twine clasped in her stiffened hands. I escape her notice. The quarry lies beyond and it’s there he will meet his end. A shotgun for crows turns into one for a man. He has always believed crows to be the souls of humans who’ve brought evil into this world. In the last moments before his death, he wonders if he’ll become one of them. 

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This is not a place for rest. 

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I climb through the window of a red-brick house. A young girl watches me from her bed, tears run rivulets down her face and leave puddles on the pillow. Screams echo through the halls. I take her hand and we leave unnoticed through the front door. Her feet are bare. Goosebumps raise on her arms as we move through the night air. She leads me to a whitewashed building at the end of the street. Outside a handful of people raise their homemade signs angrily. “MURDERERS” they bellow. “TRAMP” screams an elderly man, the veins on his face pulsing with rage. She squeezes my hand and walks into the clinic. She will not regret this. 

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The streetlight flickers and they approach. 

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My vision flashes as white spots and black outlines lurch around me. Flanking. Their silhouettes glow neon, pulsating behind my lids. I stagger towards shouts from a pub. My pace and pulse quicken in time. They reach out and graze the small of my back. At the bar is a familiar man. He grins, I open my mouth to speak only to find I’ve forgotten. This should alarm me, but it doesn’t. I need to seek sanctuary or embrace consumption. My breath is stuck in my throat and no matter how hard I try it cannot penetrate my chest. These shallow gasps crescendo in my ear. He picks up his pint glass and gulps the remainder before refilling it from a hip flask and offering it to me. He winks. A sickness unfurls in the pit of my stomach, clawing its way up my ribs and into the soft flesh of my throat. I’m unsteady. He stands but I’m barely a body anymore. There’s no meat to sink his teeth into. I disappear into the days, leaving nothing behind. 

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Our pilgrimage is nearing its end. 

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A house party shakes the neighbourhood. Most of the homes are abandoned. Half built, never to be finished, never to be lived in. Fragments of the Celtic Tiger. My form vibrates as I enter, music snaking beneath the floor into the soles of the congregated. Muffled voices titter from behind closed doors. I am followed still and cannot linger. The patio is open and the stale smell of cigarettes wafts in. This is not the place. I exit as quickly as I can. 

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You must choose.