ttepshortstories

[ttepshortstories]

HOME IMPROVEMENT (koinoniphobia)

The far wall of my living area has a stain on the bottom left corner. It might have been from water damage or a rogue splash of coffee— I don’t remember. Maybe it came with the apartment, maybe I inflicted it upon the fading green-striped wallpaper, maybe someone else did. It sat, slightly obfuscated by the worn green couch that I had hauled in from a charity shop.

What matters is the fact that it’s gone now.

I noticed immediately. Not because I make it a habit to spend undue time considering my studio apartment’s ragged baseboards, nor the surrounding area, but sometimes the fancy strikes me— and it was just so odd I couldn’t help but take note.

It was a passing glance, at first. This escalated to an examination, then an investigation. It just didn’t make sense, and I despise things not making sense— I’ve always been detail oriented, even as a small child. I’ve been told I was insistent and annoying. I consider the “was” to be an unappreciated, unnecessary nicety.

That aside, there was nothing practical I could do about it besides re-stain my wall, and I would much like to get my security deposit back at some point. So, I left it alone, with only a tingling worry at the back of my mind.

Maybe a bit more than a tingling worry. I didn’t get much sleep that night— the misremembering (or sudden fix) of something, (even something as asinine as a stain on my wall) was troubling, to say the least.

I’ll admit, the stain took precedence over my morning routine after I woke. I jumped out of bed, trailing my hand against the wall to rest my fingers on the doorframe as I stared out past the kitchen, to the small corner where my couch sat. 

I didn’t know whether to feel happy or upset when I saw that it was back. Confused, might be a suitable alternative. Worried. It had so rattled me yesterday that it seemed unlikely I simply misremembered— but, then again, what was the alternative?

It was the lampshade next. While the stain was excusable, the off colored hue of the cloth covering was absolutely  incorrect. While yesterday, it had been a pale yellow, now it had a pink hue. It cast an unflattering light over the room, and I was all the more convinced that I needed to replace the locks on my front door.

After a quick assessment of my belongings, I was relieved to find that none of them had been stolen– so this was most likely just an ill-mannered prank; but the idea of someone slinking around my apartment in the dead of night, without me knowing and with no clear reason, was admittedly incredibly alarming. After packing my laptop into my backpack (really, it was the only thing I owned that was worth stealing), I headed out the door to go get additional locks.

That night, after I had secured my doors in place, I stayed up, listening for any telltale sound of rattling at my door. I heard nothing, and I must have drifted off to sleep at some point, because the next thing I remember was opening my eyes to see the popcorned ceiling of my bedroom.

I was torn between rushing out to my living room, and staying safe tucked under my covers. I split the difference, dragging the duvet with me as I poked my head out of my door.

The lampshade was back to its normal yellow.

An exposition of hysterical laughter escaped me, before I crept out of my room to inspect the replacement. It was just like the old one.

An inspection of my locks revealed no evidence of foul play. They were still as strong as I had left them. I'd either need more, or one less susceptible to lock picking. Shaking my head, I ran a hand through my tangled hair and made my way to my bathroom.

To find it completely re-tiled.

While before, the backsplash was a dingy white, with small uniform tiles that came with the apartment, now it was a tasteful deep blue, with a more rock-like pattern, gray grout in-between. There was absolutely no way this could have been done without me noticing– the bathroom wall rested right beside my bedroom.

I decided to call my landlord before I called the police. He told me every apartment was equipped with a tasteful blue backsplash.

I hung up, and forwent the police. I went to bed early that night, but I didn't sleep. I listened, one ear to my door, to catch the perpetrator in the act.

Not a single sound came from outside my door. Not even when I had to sink to the floor, the muscles in my legs cramping so bad that I could no longer stand.

In fact, there was no sound at all. No birds, no buzz of my refrigerator, no AC.

Morning came hours ago, but I don't think I'll open my door quite yet.

[ttepshortstories]

ATMOSPHERE (astrophobia)

I’ve never been a stranger to the black, empty expanse of the night sky. It conquered all horizons, its vast nothingness large and imposing, its depths impossibly infinite and yet not too far away at all.

When I laid myself down in the thick, grassy vegetation—damp clovers and weeds and things that looked like flowers—and when I held my gaze to the sky, a staring contest with the eye of infinity, I could pretend that those horizons fell away, leaving me stranded. 

My parents were gone and I had no husband or kids, so I lived alone in my small cottage out in the fields of southern Colorado. While mostly it remained as flat as could be, my house sat in a small dip leading up to a large hill, on which the closest town was situated. That place is where I got my food, went to work, and where I generally found myself most of the day.

However, on the other side of my house was another slight rise. Not nearly a hill; simply a slope back up into flatness, where my field sat.

It wasn’t truly my field, of course. It was just land that no one really owned or wanted. It was large and overgrown, but it was quiet and lovely in a way that not many places are these days. I’d sit, so early in the morning that some would call it late at night, and watch the stars twinkle. I’ve always been fascinated with how stars only twinkle because of our atmosphere; it’s a gentle reminder that there really is something between us, though at night it doesn't feel that way: Sometimes I wished I could remove that intervening layer, float free and endless just like I imagined when I laid my head down in a bed of weeds.

One early morning, when my head was pillowed in the thick vegetation and my gaze was affixed upon the endless blackness of void, I noticed something odd with the sky that I had made myself familiar with over countless hours spent analyzing every square inch of it, every mile and light year it truly was, trying desperately to map it out in the way that sailors did, trying to wrap my head around the sheer enormity of the blanket above me. I noticed that the stars weren’t twinkling. 

As the dread began to worm its way under my fingernails, as my heartbeat quickened and as I broke out into a cold sweat, my mind entered free-fall. For just a moment—Maybe a chance moment, maybe a manufactured one—I began to truly understand the concept infinity.

My eyelids pressed together, trying to stop the onslaught of never ending darkness from consuming me; the bright lights already burned into my vision as I desperately tried to do away with what I had searched for all of these years. Truly grasping the enormity of the universe around me was like floating in the depths of the ocean, unsure as to which was further—the light of forgiving air, or the bottom of the sea floor.

I understood it, only for a moment. Only a fraction of a fraction of a moment when considering the grand scale of life of which I was now all too aware of. Regardless, I was pinned in place by the oppressive darkness of the night sky, even as the sun began to peak over the horizon, as harsh lightness blotted out the stars, as the morning brushed infinity behind the thin blanket of day.

I knew better. I knew the morning had not swallowed the night time. The sky’s teeth were bared into a bright smile, but only moments ago its jaws were stretched wide open.

It was around four in the afternoon when I managed to drag myself back into my house, my fragile ceiling mere tissue paper holding back a flood, a naive suggestion of safety.

I moved to the city that month. The inescapable light pollution seemed enough to keep me from being swallowed up. But still, I knew that was a lie. 

Because whenever rogue, faraway stars peak through the shield of man-made brightness, they don’t twinkle.