This Little Room of Regret

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A Christmas evening. This is a Christmas party, and I am having fun.

Fun. No, no, no. Fun! Okay, more like it. But we can do better. FUN! Yes. Yes! That's it. FUUUUN!

Music blaring. Chattering around. Party noises abound. This is fun. No, no, no. Fun! FUN! Yes.

As I stumbled around the corridor, the floor all around me warped in weird angles like buildings in a place that shouldn't exist. The walls shifted, seeming to collapse toward me yet at the same time pulling away from me. The floor I walked on stretched down into hell, angling this way and that way like a ship cresting violent rogue waves, sending me crashing against the moving walls before then sending me crashing against the other walls as if playing a twisted game of ping pong with my wasted body.

Up ahead, the corridor stretched endlessly in front of me, twisting into these endless hallways, hallways through which my blurred eyes could see around the corners until the end of time.

Two figures walked up toward me, and through my hazy eyes, I could see that they were not like people. Their limbs were unnaturally long and their frames inhumanely thin. As they neared, their faces, oh, their ugly, gaunt and ghostly faces, were stretched downward, as if being pulled down by a very strong force, looking like they were melting, like the mask from Scream. Their red eyes, looking like drooping red poppies, were looking at me, and their mouths moved up and down, as if they were trying desperately to say something, to say something human. They looked like they were long dead and were still not aware of it. 

I looked away, straight ahead, and tried to ignore them as they passed. But they stopped just as I approached. I heard the sounds that their mouths were making. What haunting, nasty sounds of demons was that? Their voices were eerie and drawn out, as though they were speaking in warped time, their words drawn out and sounding horrific.

“Aaaaaareeeee youuuuuu ooooookaaaaaaaaaaaaaa –

The okay dragged on ceaselessly. One of them stretched those thin, corpse-like fingers toward me. I pulled back, disgusted, and staggered away from these shadowy creatures as fast as my feeble feet could carry me and stumbled further down the shifting walls and unstable floor that moved like liquid under my feet.

Finally, I saw it. The door to salvation appeared in front of me like a savior.

Another of these tall, elfin creatures walked out of the door and began walking my way. I looked straight ahead and avoided looking at its melting face and stretched out eyes that looked stuck in perpetual horror. This paid me no heed, passing by me without as much as a glance.

I stumbled into the room and closed the door behind me.

The lighting in this room was punishing, a blinding white light from the buzzing fluorescent, far removed from the moody blue and red lighting that was in the rest of the house. I didn’t even know whose house this was. All I knew was that this was a Christmas party that I had somehow stumbled into and that I was having fun.

Fun. Fuck no. Fun! Okay more –

FUN!

Yes! Moore!

FUUUN!

Oh yeeees!

But first, I needed to throw up to get rid of the nausea that was overtaking me.

I walked into this room, whose walls were filled with cracks that peeled in places, exposing the red brick underneath. They had faded into this rancid-looking off-white color, musty and moldy, reeking of neglect. I stumbled through the wet, sticky floor, which shifted this way and that way like the rest of the floors, kicking red tumblers and used condoms out of the way as I lurched forward toward the toilet.

I keeled over the nasty toilet whose seat was wet with urine and into the stinky bowl lined with years of grime. In there, someone had taken a long call and not flushed, and even in my mental fog, I could clearly smell the pungent, vile stink coming from that girthy single green poop that floated on the water like a crocodile lying in wait for prey.

I gripped the sides of that toilet bowl and began retching over the toilet, cursing the day that I was born.

My body began feeling this strange warmth from within. At first, the warmth felt nice, like a soothing hug from within. Then it started to get uncomfortable, as if I were sitting too close to a small fire. Then, it became unbearable, as if I were standing at the edge of a roaring furnace.

My chest began to compress, as though my body was swelling from within. My brain fog increased tenfold, and all I could now see, aside from the moving walls and the ceiling collapsing on me with waves like falling water, were these little twinkling stars sparkling red, green, and blue.

I reached for my shirt and unbuttoned it, breathing in long, deep gasps as my throat itched and constricted, restricting air flow. Something was choking me from inside.

I stumbled back and collapsed on my back on the sticky floor from which reeked a musty smell of liquor, dirty rubber, semen and poop. My body tensed up, and the light above me became this blinding wave of light that swirled over my head, hurting my swollen eyes and forcing me back to the ground, trying to pin me back to the ground. Strong arms pulled me down, and a strange pit opened up in my chest, as though the middle part of my chest had been sucked out.

This was a Christmas party, and I was having fun.

Fun.

Nope.

FUN!

FUUN!

FUUU – Fuck!

Something broke inside me. My heart beat, which had been beating hard against my ear, stopped. I stopped gasping for air, and there was no sound of me breathing.

What had happened? Where was I? How did I get here? Who was I? I didn't know. All I knew was that I was at a Christmas party, and I was having fun. 

But something was off.

I grabbed the walls and tried to bring myself to my feet, but my fingers - my fingers were not my own. They weren’t even fingers at all. They were long, round, flaccid, and smooth. I had no feeling in them. My feet were jelly that collapsed underneath me as soon as I put some weight on them. The sound of muted music coursed through the walls, echoing into the room and driving shards of high-pitched pain into my bleeding ears.

Then I saw the small window above the toilet. On the wall next to it, a mirror and a sink, with a tap overflowing with sparkling water. The sullen door I had walked in through stood behind me. I was still in the toilet. My heart burned, and the grip at the pit of my stomach deepened, this invisible hand pulling me into myself by my insides. It was a strange feeling to feel this chasm open up inside me like a sinkhole.

I dragged my feet across the floor, but I was not moving. There was no floor, just sand, sand with arms, arms that reached out, dug deep into my calf, and pulled me down. The door was only inches away. I stretched a desperate hand, my jaw slackened by a scream, a scream that did not come.

But there was no door. It collapsed into itself right before my eyes and disappeared into the wall, dragged away by an invisible string, an invisible string held by an invisible hand, an invisible hand that was dragging me from the inside into myself.

I hemmed and hawed, gasped and clutched.

I looked at the window above the toilet.

I...need...to...reach...it...now!

I forced myself up to my jelly feet that wobbled endlessly and gripped the edge of the windowsill with my soft, round fingers that had no feeling and pulled myself up to the window. It was too small for me to pass through, but I could see the outside, so that was good.

A buzzing street light lit the black iron gate through which I had walked when coming to this party. But aside from lighting the iron gate, the rest of the light was swallowed by the immense, melancholic wall of darkness all around it. So all it was was this lonely street light lighting up this lonely iron gate.

Help!

Heeelp!

Help me I'm stuck!

My voice echoed in the darkness, as though I was screaming into an abandoned tunnel. The streetlight turned to me, but there was no light, just a dull yellow glow of solitude looking at me, the darkness around it a moving mass of blackness, belching, groaning, and squelching, squeezing every inch of light from the slowly wasting streetlight bulb.

I called again, and this time, help came.

The darkness began to fold away, as a hole of light began burning through the nothingness. It kept burning until I was standing in front of Abigail. My Abigail! It was the two of us in what used to be our bedroom. But this time, the roof was gone, and we were standing under the pale moonlight.

“Abigail!” I called, drenched in relief as I cackled to myself. “Abigail, Oh, thank God you came back! You have to help me!”

She threw the clothes into her suitcase.

“You have made your choice,” She said. “I want nothing to do with you.”

“Abigail, please, you have to help me! I am stuck!” I cried desperately to her.

“It’s too late to come begging,” She said again, her voice shaky and tearful.

I could not see her face, because it was smooth, her features blurred and rubbed off, like a fading memory. Her voice was miserable and haunting, like that of a woman whose heart had been ripped by cold-blooded hands from her chest. Indeed, I saw it, blood pooling from the cavity in her chest. Her heart had indeed been ripped from her chest by cold-blooded hands. It was in my hands, her heart, each beat screaming at me.

“A…A…A…Abi!” I cried to her, rushing to her feet. “P…please, A…A…A…Abi, we…we can sort this out!”

She paid me no heed.

“You know what the worst thing is?” She spoke as she went on packing her clothes. “The worst thing is that you are convinced that what you are doing is right. I mean, oh my God! I could have persevered with your obnoxious self. But the fact that you believed you were on the right is just...so...so...so infuriating! My God! I hate you, I hate you, I hate youuuu!"

She screamed her lungs out and collapsed on the bed in agony, sobbing. There on the bed was the pile, pictures of me and her. No. Not her, as in Abigail. Her, as in Alicia. Her, as in Alice. Her, as in Amanda. I reached for her hand.

"W...w...we...we can sort this out, babe," I stammered amidst tears.

She pulled away from me, a disgusted grimace on her face, like she had been touched by something grotesquely unpleasant. She dragged her suitcase across the room and made for the door. I lunged desperately for her and grabbed her arm. As soon as I touched her, she broke into sand, sand that blew away in the wind. Her heart, in my hand, it too turned into sand, but sand that was sharp and began cutting into my skin. I dropped it and rushed after her, getting lost in the blowing sand that hurt my eyes and choked me.

When I could finally see again, I was standing next to my father’s favorite chair. He was seated on it, a grim look on his face. He looked up at me.

“Father, please help me!” I cried.

But he had no eyes, and he could not see me. Instead, he had these deep holes of darkness on his sad face.

“Why did you do this?” He asked, his voice calm and composed, like that of a man unyoked from his pain and resigned to his fate. He reached out his trembling hand, but not for help, no. It was to admonish. He shook that trembling finger at me as if casting a nasty spell at me.

“You burned me alive! You will know no peace!” He cried, his voice tremulous and poignant.

Then, his whole body burst into flames, and I watched in horror as he agonized in his chair for several minutes until nothing was left but ash and an outline of what he once was etched forever in the seat.

I screamed and buried my face in my hands, and when I looked back up, I was in my mother’s room. At the sight of me, my mother gasped. Her face, previously vibrant, went pale as her eyes widened in horror, and her jaw slacked as she began opening and closing her mouth desperately, as if wanting to scream but unable to find the strength or voice. She wanted to run away from this creature walking up to her, but she couldn't. Then she stopped trying to get away and lay there, looking at me with a desperate plea in her eyes.

Don’t come any closer, her frightened expression said.

“I...I...I just want help, Mum. I...I...I am stuck!” I cried to her.

“How? How, eh? How could you do this to us – just abandon us to ourselves like this, son?” She asked, shaking her head, crying. “How could you take everything from us? How could you sell your father's land and leave him with nothing? And Abigail - how could you do that to her? She had been nothing but good to you, right from your accident to your full recovery. How? How? How could you? Oh, how could you, son?”

“Mum, I am so, so, so sorry!” I cried as I rushed to her bedside and knelt beside her.

I reached for her hand, but she was no more, because she had melted into a grotesque puddle on the bed, and all I had in my hand was the slimy flesh of what she once was.

“Mum! MUM!”

But she was gone - forever. The ground underneath opened up and swallowed the wooden mahogany bed, the fading lampshade, the broken windows, and the chipped walls, leaving me in his endless void of darkness.

At my feet dropped a bundle of notes. Then another. Then another. Suddenly, it was raining notes, bundles of crisp banknotes. I didn't need them anymore! All I wanted for my family back! I screamed into the void, cursed at the mass of pulsing darkness all around me until I was hoarse. All I got back was an indifferent silence. The bundle of notes kept falling in a violent rain, cracking through the room with shattering roars until they buried me up my chest and I was drowning in them.

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I was back in the little room. The walls, rather than swing about this time, stretched in front of me into a long, haunting corridor that went on ceaselessly. I looked behind me at the window that still beckoned. The quiet, unassuming mirror nodded me over.

The door! The mirror was the door!

I gasped and lunged for the mirror, crashing into it with my whole body weight. My body split into countless pieces. A barbed wire wrapped around my neck, a barbed wire of regret, choking me with past painful memories. It tightened and pooled my past life on my neck until I could not breathe. I gasped, digging my fingers into my neck, tearing through the paper that was my skin and ripping apart every sinew, trying to find that hole that would let me breathe again.

If…only…I could…grab…the…windpipe!

I screamed. I did not scream. I could not scream! I had no mouth!

I reached my frantic, flailing hand to the sink and dragged myself to my feet. The invisible hand that had taken the door and that had opened up the cavity in my chest, rubbed my nose out of existence as I watched. I was wasting away, like a forgotten memory.

My lungs filled with sand, coarse and painful, choking me and giving me violent fits of coughing that further heightened the hollow feeling in my chest. I clutched at my face, trying to grasp my eyes before this invisible hand also wiped them away.

The window called once again.

I reached up to it and looked out again. Under that sad, lonely yellow streetlight surrounded by that pulsing mass of darkness, I saw the three of them - mother, father, and Abigail, through this looking glass to the other side.

They weren’t looking at me. No. They were, instead, laughing. But not together. No. Each was in their own place, their own time, their own dimension, yet seemingly united in laughter before my dying eyes. They were all very old now. Mother and father were nothing but dry bones and dead skin. Abigail had grey, thinned hair, and the skin on her face was wrinkled with age. Yet their laughter was as clear as ever, a constant drone reminding me of the life I had lived, of the torture I had put them through. These echoes of laughter stirred throughout the unforgiving, haunting beauty of the endless gloom that surrounded me.

The mirror called me back from the window.

I rushed to it, and saw in my reflection that I had no eyes, no nose, no mouth. I had no face. Down on the floor, beneath my feet, I lay, pale and lifeless, slumped over the toilet.

That invisible hand reached out once again, pulling me in every direction this time. I felt my very essence stretch in my abdomen, my body stretching to the very limits it could hold, each cell of my body screaming as it was pulled in all directions.

I punched the mirror. A crack. Then another and then some more. Whole generations of cracks on that mirror. The noise of the breaking mirror was deafening. Then the crashing sound. The shards turned in my general direction and began to fly toward me in warp time, flying fast toward me yet at the same time, appearing to fly in slow motion so that I could see each individual one glint with malice and vengeance. They would rip through me at any second now. I closed my eyes as the glasses crashed into me with violent, scything blows. A strong gust blew past my face, and I broke into countless pieces –

I opened my eyes. I was slumped on the couch with countless other drunks all around me. I felt nauseous, my head was throbbing violently, and I had severe chest pains. I needed to find a bathroom quickly! It was a weary Christmas evening, and I was at a Christmas party, having fun.

Fun. No, no, no. Fun! Okay, more like it. But we can do better. FUN! Yes. Yes! That's it. FUUUUN!

Music blaring. Chattering around. Party noises abound. This is fun. No, no, no. Fun! FUN! Yes. FUN!