Kaez's Stories

[Kaez]

Lights on. There's my computer. Television. Four white walls, various scratches and bruises accumulated over the years. Lamp, books, fish tank. Wires, climbing like vines throughout the mess of wood and metal, connecting everything up to the electrical outlets buried deep in the drywall. I am bound to this. No matter where my mind may venture, it is always brought right back to the confinement of this room. Always jailed by reality.

Lights off.

In darkness, I find freedom. Walls? Perhaps -- I wouldn't know. For all I can be sure of, I'm surrounded by rolling hills, huge, towering fjords. I'm as likely to find my computer as I am the thick, cylindrical trunk of the sequoia. The mind is unhinged and unburdened in darkness. Childhood spirit rekindled. Stresses of desire, vanished under the dark.

[Kaez]

"Plague?"

"That's what it says."

"...Jeff, nobody gets the plague anymore."

"Well isn't that what it says?"

"Lemme see... No, you ass, it says plaque."

"That's a 'g'!"

"No, that's a 'q'. Look closer."

"... I'm seeing a g, man. That's a g. Play-guh."

"No one gets the goddamn plague! That doesn't even make sense!"

"Are you sure? I've got to look this up. I bet you people do still get the plague -- I've heard about it."

"You haven't heard shit. It's plaque. You've got plaque. You eat cheeseburgers, that's all it's saying. This is cheeseburgers-in-the-heart illness."

"Oh my god, people do still get the plague! Look at this! A whole wikipedia article!"

"Goddamn it, no! Plaque! Plaque!"

"... I'm going to die. Oh dear christ, I'm going to die! I've got to call my mom..."

"Fine! You know what? I don't care. You've got the plague and you're going to die and I don't care!"

"Mom? Yeah... it's Jeff. Listen..."

[Kaez]

The asphalt stings and it's four AM. There's a paint-chipped Mustang twenty feet away, driver-side jaw hung wide. Parking lot street lights flicker over crowds of moths and my head plays a fanfare of aches and pounds.

Did I walk from here to there? Was I walking to there?

What now.

Brain fuzz. Mind blank and spinning. The outlines of the closed-down department stores were familiar, vaguely -- my location somewhere between consciousness and confusion.

I'd been running, sure enough, my legs pumping blood and muscles screaming out, stuck in second gear. Someone's in the car, singing faint noises against the night air and fuck, it's cold.

Dextromethorphan, tetrahydrocannabinol, hydroxyethane.

"Jesus christ," says I, crawling like a newborn across parking spaces and polyethylene litter. If I could just make it to that car, maybe things could be alright. Maybe time would catch up and the air wouldn't be so heavy anymore.

But it's a long crawl, and I'm falling.

[Kaez]

Bite right fucking down. Let your teeth sink deep and taste it. Salt and sweat and warm, smooth blood. Collapsing in your jaw, you can feel it -- not sensually, but spiritually. That's the taste of flesh, and a soul's a bitter aftertaste. Run your tongue through your teeth and know that all you have left is thick and dripping, raw and beating.

Close your eyes, nice and tight, and keep biting down. Vibrations sounding through your bones and up through your tongue until all that's inside is the pumping of blood through your mouth and memories of the times that your mouth was shut tight. Soft and sweet, the beats echo down your spine and, with lungs clenched and gasping for air, you let off of your grip and stare blankly at dental records imbedded in bruises on skin.

[Kaez]

Type another instant message. It's like a videogame. I reply this way: I get this response. I reply that way: I get that response. Are you fucking real? Because sometimes, there's no difference. Say you're sad. I say sorry, you say that's okay. I say fuck you, you say fuck off. Computer programming. Reply generates response.

Get this the hell out of my head. You are real and don't let me think otherwise.

Speed dial number one. Hey.

I say 'hey', you say 'how are you?'.

I say 'die', you say, 'fuck yourself'.

Computer programming. Reply generates response.

What are you that isn't a machine? What do you do that couldn't be replaced by wires and chips and screens and microphones?

I am alone. A hermit, I sit typing. I sit speaking. Responses generate replies but what does that mean, anyway? "Connection"? "Interaction"? Or just a game where you win or lose by knowing the right code to punch in?

[Kaez]

Little mothballs where something used to rest, safe beneath the sheets. There's a smell imbedded into the pillows and the blankets, and every time it fills my lungs, I'm back there again. Color filled these walls. They beat with life and rang with the sound of your voice. I don't come in here most nights. The couch will do -- four AM infomercials with make-up laden hollywood dropouts instead of you, there, just sleeping.

You can't possibly torment yourself in the way that I do.

You must have forgotten.

[Kaez]

I write to you now in dark times, my friends.

My story, my encounters, my discovering of the world I knew not was unfolding around me, has already begun.

Today is July 28th, 2009, according to the calendar on my computer. It’s 2:03 am and I am sitting underneath a large mound of blankets with my laptop. The air here is thick and warm and my breathing is labored. There is much I have to tell.

Before we begin my story, let me preface with this:

What I’m about to write is going to seem unbelievable to most of you. I know that. I write it fully understanding the opinions of those who are most likely to be reading this – my friends. I never believed in the supernatural. If you find yourself reading this, you know that. You know that I’m not crazy. I’m a stable person who doesn’t believe in unstable things – and yet typing that sentence just sent a cool, smooth chill up my spine.

These have been dark times. Though I suspect if anyone is reading this, it is some time in the future, you may remember specifically this July. I have been distant from you, friends. I have not been the man I should be for you all, this I know. Many of you are going through difficult times and I’ve been largely unreachable for lengthy periods, and when I have been reachable, I have been irritable or distant, I know.

But I hope this will explain things. I hope that maybe, in reading this, you will understand what it is that I have been through, and why it is that I have not been who I should be for you all.

Please, try to understand. Try to believe me. Know that the person writing this right now is a sane, stable person. Someone whose consciousness is entirely intact and someone who has, through no choice of his own, been put in a very unfortunate situation.

I am deeply sorry to you all. And I hope you find something helpful herein. I intend to keep things as condensed and as brief as possible for now, but once I have caught this log up to my current events, I intend to use it as a place for a more full speculation on my affairs in hopes to explain this more than I have thusfar been able.

Sincerely.


///


Retelling: July 5, 2009, between the hours of 1:00am and 2:00am.

I have no single word to summarize the events of this past month. I’ll simply call it ‘my account’.

My account began sometime between 1am and 2am on July 5. It was the last night that I went to sleep in darkness. I lay there, exhausted from a long day, my head soft against my pillow, my blankets tightly over me, a fan on low on the opposite side of the room. I was comfortable, and I was content, and the world was quiet and calm. It was a warm, filling calmness, the kind that reaches inside of you and fills your whole body with a deep relaxation – and I fell into that peculiar stage of consciousness right between waking and sleeping, where the world is a dizzy buzz.

Loud, clacking raps in such rapid succession that I can hardly find a good metaphor for the noise. Suppose you held a hard object just near enough to the spinning blade of a fan, or a card through the spokes of a bicycle. So fast, so loud, so sharp that I cannot tell how many there were – a dozen, maybe two, echoing against the hard glass of my window.

It was an alarming sound, not so much for its loudness, but for its unnaturalness. It was no rock, no branch, no wind. It was a peculiar sound that one simply did not find in natural things. And it came upon me in such a time of half-waking that I was unsure, as I lay there, my eyes wide, whether I had heard it at all. The sound had nestled into a patch of my memory which could not decide between a dream and reality. Did I hear the sound? Was it real?

Truth be told, friends, I did not know. It did not concern me so deeply that I felt a need to go sleepless that night. After a few minutes of silence, I decided that it was likely a dream, and if it was not, it was not coming back. Still, it bothered me. It bothered me enough that I was not going to escape the sanctuary of my blanket to go peer out of a dark window into the night beyond in search for the cause of the strange, sharp tap. I was content letting it go, and investigating no further.

And in time, I slept, and woke. And the day of the 5th went on like most other days, normally and typically, and I came home tired yet again, shut everything down, turned the fan on low, and went to bed.


Retelling: July 6, 2009, between the hours of 1:00am and 3:00am.

The tapping came again. This time, there was no mistake, and I was wide awake to hear it – indeed, even typing this fills my entire body with an acute vibration, a deep chill, my eyes watering. It was the true first fear of my account, and it was a deep fear. There is a distinct difference between a peculiar noise in the night and a peculiar noise two nights in a row at almost precisely the same time.

A very, very distinct difference.

I was stiff and my eyes were wide and locked on the curtains over my window, though my head dare not tilt toward it. I was motionless, soundless. My breathing slowed to a silent, heavy, constant cycle. My mind raced to think of things that could explain such a situation. Could there be something on a timer? Something that would go off every night?

I couldn’t think of anything. My apartment complex being well built and sturdy, I could think of nothing that would make a sound that seemed so distinctly on my window. So definitely right here, the vibrations of its sound subtly filling my room as it happened, loud enough to be but feet away.

I could think of nothing to explain this.

I carefully reached across to my computer desk and picked up my television remote and turned the TV on. Its light flooded my room and the sound was so welcomed. Some infomercial, a woman talking about selling a food processor of some sort. It was bright and white and her voice was happy.

I sat up in my bed and, without the will or energy to change the channel, watched it for an hour or two. I think I fell asleep about three.

Again, I woke to greet a normal day. That is, until I left my apartment.

[tamwyn]

As I read this, I get a vibe similar to "Paranormal Activity". Though I am unaware if that was intended, that's how I feel about it. Seeing as how this but the beginning of the "Account", I can not say much besides "I foresee a cleverly haunting read". The mastery of language herein is quite obvious, as I found no grammar or spelling issues on my way through it; a usual in your work, I've noticed.

Without more to go on, I conclude with the promise I will continue reading anything you put down, if for no other reason than to learn from one of the best. Well done, Kaez - I look forward to the continuing of your "Account".

[Kaez]

Sitting upon the doormat was a white envelope, resting there almost too neatly and aligned precisely with the angles of the mat. On the front was my name in big penciled letters.

It was likely the first time I had even thought about the noise on the window from the night before. I had my coffee and a shower and breakfast and watched a half an hour of television without even giving it a thought. Until I saw that letter. My eyes darted, almost instinctively, around the hallway – down and up the stairs, through the crack between the main doors.

It was empty.

I picked up the envelope as quickly as I could, closed the locked door behind me, and nearly ran to my car. Once inside, I locked the doors around me again and pulled quickly up and out of the driveway.

The letter rested on the passenger side seat for the ride. The moving cars, the lights, the people, the living world around me was welcomed. It made me feel much less alone. When I pulled into the restaurant parking lot, Jess’ car wasn’t there, and so in having time to sit and wait, I took up the envelope.

It was ordinary. The writing on the front was typical, not stressed, not neat. The back of it was tucked in instead of sealed. I untucked it and found there to be a single piece of lined paper inside, folded into three sections – such a simple thing, it eased me.

“My neighbor,” the letter read.

“I know you do not know me, but if it wouldn’t be a trouble, I would like to speak with you about an important matter. I am home all day today. Feel free to knock.

Sincerely, Stephen.”

That was my first contact with Stephen Hall. Looking back on it now seems strange, for there is no man I have spent more time with or spoken more deeply to in what seems a very long time than Stephen.

He is my dearest friend.

I did not mention the situation at breakfast. Why would I? It was strange and I knew none of the details and it was surely nothing for anyone to be worried over.

When I got home, I walked down the short hallway to my door and paused. My neighbor, whose name I now knew to be Stephen, lived directly across from me. His door was literally six short feet from mine. He had no doormat and no decorations. No umbrella sat outside. Just an empty, plain door.

I stuffed my keys into my pocked and knocked two knocks.

Stephen answered the door with a strange immediacy. “Come in, please,” he said before I even had the opportunity to look at his face. I politely stepped inside and he gestured toward his couch.

His apartment is strange. It’s almost entirely empty. He has a couch, one chair, and a very small dining room table. Though I did not see them that day, I would later come to know that the bedrooms, bathroom, and kitchen of the apartment were equally bare.

On the opposite side of the room from the couch was a massive flat screen television on the wall with a large variety of wires coming from it. It displayed the image from his desktop, which sat nearby. A verse from ‘I Sing the Body Electric’ was his wallpaper.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves;
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do as much as the Soul?
And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul?

“Uh, hello,” he said nervously, I distinctly remember.

Perhaps now is the time to describe Stephen. He is an extremely lanky, narrow man who towers at least four inches above me. I have never asked him his age, but I suspect he is about fifty, for the hair that makes up his thick mess of a beard and long, scraggly top is splashed with grey and his face has its share of wrinkles. He has a tendency for wearing completely blank long-sleeve shirts. I think the one he wore that day was white.

He sat down in the single chair and looked at me for a moment.

“Hi,” I said. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

“No,” he said, again more quickly than I would have imagined. “We’ve not.”

Stephen apologized for the letter, which must have seemed queer and abrupt, but I said that it was nothing if there was something of worth to discuss. He insisted that yes, there certainly was, and told me to wait just one moment as he got up and walked across the room. As he went into the dining room, I lost sight of him for just an instant and he quickly turned back with something in his hands. It seemed to be made of wood.

“Seen anything unusual lately, neighbor?”

I cleared my throat and clarified that he could call me by my name, but in an odd way he shook his head and seemed to be waiting for me to answer.

“Not… really, not that I can think of. Nothing comes to mind.”

He nodded at me and looked down at the object in his hands for a minute before holding it up to me. It was a small, wooden circle with an X through it. Or, I supposed, a cross. It would depend on how one held it.

He offered it to me and I took it up and looked over it. The outer circle was made of eight or nine small pieces of curved wood that were all tied to each other. The inner cross was made of three pieces tied similarly.

I dropped it onto the couch perhaps less delicately than I should have. It was tied together with long, wiry strands of what I first thought might have been thread, but soon became apparent to be hair.

“Jesus!” I said. What in the hell had I gotten myself into, just walking into a stranger's apartment and holding some hair-covered fucking... thing?

“The most bothersome part of all,” Stephen said, “Is that I’m tempted to believe it’s my hair.” He said so matter-of-factly, but with a tinge of disgust.

I blinked at him in a very unsavory way and after a few seconds, his eyes bugged.

“Oh, goodness!” he exclaimed. “No, no, no, I didn’t make that. I imagine you thought me to be a loon for a moment there.”

I still blinked.

“I found that, yesterday, sitting right in the middle of my living room when I woke up. Just sitting there.”

What sort of response was I supposed to have to that sort of thing? I just stared at him and hoped he’d clarify.

“I woke up and was walking into the kitchen and suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, something caught my attention. And there it was, laying on the carpet – a little emblem made out of branches and… well, yes, it seems to be my hair.”

“Is this some kind of joke?” I asked. “Are you, like, accusing me of making some little thing with your hair?” I had begun to think that Stephen was very probably a crazy person.

“No!” he nearly shouted. “No, no.” He reached over and took the object and brought it over to the table again. “I tell you this because I do not know who put it there – nor how they got in my apartment.” He nodded to the door, which had, like mine, both a bolt lock and a chain lock, and his had a third, large, homemade contraption of some sort drilled into it. Stephen was certainly a strange man.

“Someone got in here somehow. And then, last night, whoever it was seemed to have been knocking on my window. Knocking hard, quickly – as though perhaps it was multiple people.”

It was like Stephen saw the tension in my eyes at the sound of this and he tilted his head slightly.

“Yeah,” I said a little nervously. “I’ve had that too, actually. Two nights in a row.”

“Ah!” he said. “This, this is why I speak to you. Someone is playing tricks with us, neighbor. And I’m not fond of that – not one bit.” His gaze was stern. “Please, if you find out anything at all, let me know. This is…” he glanced over to the object across the room. “… disturbing.”

Thinking him to be not so crazy, I took a second to consider my reaction if someone had made some strange object out of my hair without me knowing it and left it in my house at night. I got a chill.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s… well, I’m concerned, now. I was dismissing it before, but this is… not a good thing.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not a good thing at all. And somehow I don’t suspect this is the work of troublesome children.”

I shook my head. “A very sick person,” I said.

He nodded in agreement and we exchanged phone numbers before he showed me out.

I spent the entire rest of the evening wondering whether this was some sort of joke. He seemed sincere, he seemed genuinely bothered, but he was such a strange person. For some reason, I just found it too difficult to believe that someone had left such a horrid thing in his house without him knowing. It seemed, to me, exactly like the sort of thing a crazy, crazy person would do to themselves just to fuck with their neighbors.

Either way, it bothered me. Either way, I didn’t like the idea. That night I slept on the la-z-boy in the living room with the television on, and I heard no sounds on any windows.

[Kaez]

Since 'Autumn Came...' managed to, against all expectations, take 'Story of the Year', I've been putting some time and effort into crafting a spiritual successor to this recent work -- something that captures what everyone seemed to enjoy about it, but provides me with something I'd be more comfortable working with on a long-term basis (as I do feel pretty bad about never continuing these).

No dates or information or anything, but I felt it was worth saying that I am working on -something-, even if it's not 'Autumn Came...', and I think you all will enjoy. Stay tuned. :]

[ASGetty ((Zovo))]

Is this the thing we have been discussing?

[Kaez]

Jan 21, 2011 1:40:56 GMT -5 ASGetty ((Zovo)) said:

Is this the thing we have been discussing?

It is.

[ASGetty ((Zovo))]

I am looking forward to it.

[James]

Jan 21, 2011 1:44:44 GMT -5 ASGetty ((Zovo)) said:

I am looking forward to it.

As am I. Between us we must make sure he finishes it.