DaeBrayk
PI
Since: Aug, 2009
doorhandle
Since: Oct, 2010
Ettina
Since: Apr, 2009
#4: Dec 14th 2010 at 9:39:32 AM
If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.
Latia
Since: Jan, 2010
Total posts: 5

This house was built for giants.
I’ve heard the builder’s name used many times, mostly as a curse. Father grumbles it when reaching for the Cheerios. The kitchen cabinets cling to the wall a good seven feet above the ground. To reach the highest shelves, we, my family and I, we must climb on the cold black countertops. Standing on smooth black marble, it’s not as easy as it seems.
This house was built for giants. Not five 5 foot 4 people.
That’s not correct, I guess. My older brother, Joseph, he towers over Father. He was often the one asked to retrieve the cereal, and such.
Past tense. Not an error.
Joseph and Nicole, my siblings, they left our oversized house almost three years ago, to translate codes and film things, respectively. Joseph is in Washington, in a small apartment. Nicole is in Austin, in a smaller apartment. Both are happy. Their homes are not large.
This house was built for giants. Not three 5 foot 4 people.
Everyday this house seems bigger and bigger. The ceilings soar high above my head, white skies with fluorescent stars. The doors could be used by giraffes. The halls wide enough for elephants. A circus needs this much space. We- Father, Mother, and I- we don’t need this much space.
This house was built for giants. Or a horror story.
Perhaps it’s only coincidence. A bundle of building errors. Or perhaps the builders were trying to be funny.
I sincerely hope it’s the former. You would have to have a fucked up sense of humor to make the house like it is on purpose,
…I’m sorry. That came out of nowhere. Profanity isn’t necessary. Not tonight.
Not tonight.
As I said, the ceilings are high. The walls are big and spotlessly white. Blank. Without emotion, like masks worn by murderers. Everything has the sensation of echoing, even when it doesn’t. You see, the spacious halls allow sound to vibrate throughout the house. Sound travels from Father and Mother’s room to mine on the other end of the hallway. Nicole, when she’s here, can hear Father pulverize an egg in the kitchen.
That is not the scary part.
The doors will open and close on their own. No…not literally on their own, but they will slam without hands to guide them. My best explanation for this is air flow, but I have no way to properly describe it. Nicole’s room and mine, the doors face each other. Opening my door will cause hers to shut, or vice versa. Slamming her door will cause the bathroom door on my side to pop open. No, it’s too coincidental for that to be supernatural.
It’s just unnerving.
Once, when the bathroom door refused to stay shut, my sister disciplined it with one, hard slam. And immediately after came the explosion of porcelain. A cross had been hanging right next to that door. The one, enormous slam, that one giant gush of wind had flung the cross to the opposite wall.
Father once joked that agnostic Nicole had done it on her own. I laughed, then.
That is not the scary part.
There are 36 windows in my house. I counted them, today. They are not the small, picturesque windows that a fourth grader would draw, a square made of squares. These windows are tall, taller than I could ever hope to be, and a few have rounded tops. Like tombstones.
The scary part is when the sun goes down.
Once, when a friend was staying over, evening fell. She watched me scurry about the house, pulling the shutters shut on each and every window. Finally, she laughed.
It looks like you’re preparing for lockdown, she joked.
I laughed, then.
But in a way, it’s kind of true.
The windows are practically holes. It seems as if the entire world can look in. This is fine in the daylight. It is most certainly not fine at nighttime.
…so stiff.
Forgive me, tonight my words are stiff. Stiff and flat and colorless as dead petals crushed between old photo albums. You must understand, I’m trying. I’m shaking and shaking the musty books that make up my mind for the first time in a while, trying to shake out a few decent words, but nothing comes out but these dead flower petals. Carnations, lilies, yellowed roses. Forgotten flowers.
Funeral flowers.
This is the first time in a while I’ve sat at the familiar glow of the computer. The first time in a while, at least, that I’ve sat down with the intention of writing. Writing, writing, writing. Aren’t you supposed to be a writer? You dumb dumbdamnidiot,whensthelasttimeyou
…I’m sorry. Again. My head’s not on right tonight. And look, in that last sentence I switched points of view. The point of view. God, I really am rusty. But that’s what re-writes are for, right?
So. Yes, tonight’s the first time in a while I’ve sat here to write. The perfect night, right? Mother and Fath…my parents are out of town, helping my sister move. And it’s a weekend. It’s truly the perfect night to write. To make progress on the novel I’ve been supposed to be working on. The novel that was supposed to be done before my senior year of high school. Now I’m a senior, and I’m not even halfway through. Damn lazy
…
I really, really am sorry. I’ve completely and utterly derailed my train of thought. The original point of this…piece, if it were a train, it’d be a disaster, a tragedy. Casulaties. Thousands dead. The humanity. The humanity.
That wasn’t funny at all. But it’s fine. tomorrow I will rewrite it. I’ll make the necessary edits. I’ll do it tomorrow.
I’ll be able to do it tomorrow. If course I will.
You understand, right? There will be a tomorrow. This tonight will eventually end and day will arrive to banish the dark. I just need to remember that. That there will be an end to this. This overwhelming, overbearing shaking terror.
I mentioned the 36 windows, didn’t I? 36 windows, all around the house…they might as well not have built walls, for all the glass. I lied when I said they were all the same. Most of them are tall, and rounded at the top…and most importantly, they have shutters. We can close them at night. That’s my duty, to go through the house at night and close us. Close all 36 windows away from whatever might be outside.
See, that’s the lie. I didn’t mean to lie about it, I just wrote it that way. There are 36 windows, but only 34 have shutters. One is made of warped glass and is in my parents’ bathroom. The other…is right here.
Right behind me.
I’m sure it was just a bad twist of fate, to have this window situated right behind my back. Same as when the builders decided not to put shutters on it.
I mean, it’s not that terrible. Just to have a window behind me, with no shutters. So that at night, right behind my neck is a small window, just the right height of a man’s head, just the right width of his shoulders…
It’s not that terrible.
I really shouldn’t be feeling this way. All shivery and shaky. It’s just a little bit of darkness. A little black square where anyone could be looking in. Right outside my field of vision…so what? If I were to turn right now, I could instantly feel better, to know that no one was there.
But I can’t turn.
Because the moment right before you turn is the worst. Because for one horrible instant there could be someone there, or there couldn’t. You can only know one possibility if you make yourself acknowledge the other.
But you turn.
And no one is there.
This time.
I’ve been doing this for a few hours now. I shouldn’t have stayed up this late. But it’s partially, probably mainly, my procrastination, my staying online too much instead of writing. But part of it is that, for some reason, it’s hard for me not to finish a piece of work unless I stay up very late.
And…it’s essential I finish this. To prove to myself that there will be tomorrow.
I’ve been doing this for a few hours now. Just being alone with the sounds of my fingers. And the window. I’ve really stayed up too late. But I can’t stop now. I’m almost complete. And this is where I belong. Alone in the dark with the sounds of a story.
And the window.
Stupid window.
You think you’re so scary don’t you. A piece of glass on the wall. Stupid. Stupid to be afraid. I don’t care! You’re nothing but a little black square! I refuse to be frightened by you!
It’s the idea Im afraid of.
It’s the idea that keeps me here, typing and typing. Filling any silence with the notes of a keyboard. Burning my eyes on artificial light. Can’t turn of the light. Can’t stop the noise. The idea will come back.
The idea that sits at every window. In every alleyway, in every barren parking lot. The idea that comes out of a little door in your head, it whispers with a thousand teeth, every unknown is there. Waiting for you.
BULLSHIT.
I’m not afraid of you goddammit!!! I don’t care if you are an idea, if you’re real, if you’re whatever! You can’t scare me can’t scare me WON’T SCARE ME. Do you hear me? DO YOU HEAR ME?? DO
do you hear that
is it you
I don’t care if it’s you. I’ve been sitting at this fucking chair for hours and hours and you’re not going to get me now. I’ll flood the entire house with this tick tick tick if only it’ll keep you away. Who are you? Are you real? Do you enjoy doing this to me? Is this how you get your sick kicks, terrifying little girls?
Well, too bad for you, because this “little girl” isn’t taking that! All have to do is look around, and you, ideaornot, you’ll be gone! In one little turn, one, onetwo three
but I can’t.
I can’t can’t can’t cant! because of the moment! the moment before every turn, the moment of “maybe maybe not”, that stupid schrodinger’s second where you might be there and and might not and I CANT
I don’tcare. scratch the window till your fingers bleed I won’t turn. You’re not getting this girl I’ll stay her till the sun rises, maybe ALL weekend until my parents come back and I’ll tell them and we’ll laugh laugh laugh at the pathetic little squeaks of blood you’ve left. PATHETIC
Patheticpathetic YOURE Pathetic trying to go after girls alone is that what gets you off? making me scared making me cry making me scream? don’t care, won’t scare, you WONT GET ME. I’ll type this , type whatever I think of mother father mommydaddy I’ll just type till the crow cries, and you can stay there till the sun send you back wherever you crawled out of
and you can stay there at the window stupid 35th window no shutters all black, nothing is there NOTHING is there and that nothing won’t get me, won’t get me because even is it’s fist shatters the glass, it’s breath warms the back of my neck I wont give in won’t give it what it wants I won’t scream i wont scream
won’t scream
don’t scream
DON’T SCREAM DON’T SCREAMDON’TSCREAA Acvcvhckk,nk
a