Well...here's one more that I penned a month or so ago, to keep the blog alive while we wait for my esteemed blog-mate to come back from his sabbatical! ;) Hope you like it :)
Statutory warning: This story I must admit, is a bit weird and is, thankfully, not autobiographical!
Click. Ker-pluk. Matt awoke with a start as his door gently swung open and shut. He stared at it for a second, trying to ignore the frisson of fear running down his spine. The laptop’s screen was blank. Which of course meant he’d been dozing for more than 10 minutes, which in turn meant he needed another coffee. He jiggled the mouse and was faintly surprised and irritated to find the screen come alive with his Facebook page. “Guess I’m not the first guy to fall asleep while ‘Facebooking’,” he thought while refreshing the page to see if any of his 200 odd friends had decided to drop him a line. The clock showed 7.15pm and Southampton had seen its sunset two hours ago. A feeble halogen lamp half-heartedly threw some light on the lone car parked outside. It was a quiet night, like most other nights were in this busy month of January. The only sound he could make out was the distant but unceasing rumble of cars on the M-27, punctuated by an occasional thump as a neighbour moved about. The page had refreshed and, to his gratification indicated a couple of messages in his inbox. He opened it and caught up on the three-way conversation between him, his flat-mate Justine and their friend Lisa.
Justine- today at 5.46pm- “Hey Lisa, wie gehts?! I am planning to make some Soufflé this evening…want to come home, say 7pm?
Reply x Delete
Lisa- today at 5.57pm- “Ich bin gut, und du? Ah, Soufflé the original French way sounds very nice! I was planning to make some Zwiebelkuchen…maybe I bring it over and we can eat together?
Matt do you want to join us, it will be great fun?”
Reply x Delete
Matt sat back and stared out the window. On the one hand, he felt inclined to take up the invitation, confident that he wouldn’t be able to do much studying anyway this evening. On the other, it was a cold night and an entire day spent at home had made him extremely lethargic and a bit anti-social. Nothing seemed more tempting to him at the moment than a cup of hot chocolate, a blanket and a novel...
He was jerked back to wakefulness by the chatter of voices and the clang of a vessel being dropped. He got up from his desk and peered through a crack in his door into the kitchen. Through the closed glass door of the kitchen he could just make out Justine breaking some eggs. He kept watching from where he was, for some reason not wanting to intrude upon the scene. A few seconds later Lisa came into view, holding a knife in her left hand and a peeled onion in her right. She put the onion down on the counter and said something to Justine. Matt strained his ears but couldn’t catch the words. It must have been quite funny though, for the next instant both of them broke into laughter while gesturing at the knife. Justine reached into a shelf and pulled out another knife. They then started sparring playfully, grinning all the time as Matt continued watching, inexplicably entranced. The knives met with a ringing sound as both of them tried imitating moves they’d seen on countless late-night action movies. Lisa feinted to her right and then brought her knife in sharply across to Justin’s right cheek. Matt shivered slightly, not just because he was scared of knives, especially when they came anywhere within 5 inches of his face, but mainly because of Justine’s reaction- she was laughing, enjoying every minute of it, every thrust and parry! With a kind of nervousness inexorably creeping upon him he watched as she tried maneouvering herself so she could get a go at Lisa’s neck. And this was when things started to get bizarre. The change was in fact so subtle and smooth that for a few seconds Matt did not realize that something had gone horribly awry. As he continued standing there, a mute but deeply affected spectator to the charade that was being played out in the kitchen, it dawned on him. Right before his eyes the two girls had morphed- from two normal people having a good time to two angry, menacing beasts intent upon one thing only- first blood. Ten feet in front of him they stood, their grins frozen, turned into angry grimaces, the laughter gone from their eyes, replaced by the cold glazed look of killers. Petrified and rooted to the spot, Matt watched wordlessly as the knives came ever closer to their marks, wielded no longer by two normal, college-going girls but by some bizarre caricatures that seemed to have leapt out of the pages of a cheap comic strip. He opened his mouth to scream as they started grappling with each other but all that came out was a squeak. In a flash, the two girls turned towards the door. They spied him through the glass and as he watched horrified, they walked or rather marched towards him in unison, the grins still plastered on their faces. Lisa opened the kitchen door and said. “Matt do you want to join us, it will be great fun?” Stunned, Matt backed up as he heard Justine’s rejoinder- “We can force Matt to join us though it looks like he doesn’t really want to…” Suddenly, out of nowhere, he found his voice and screamed and screamed again as they advanced towards him, their knives raised….
Click. Ker-pluk. Matt awoke with a start as his door gently swung open and shut. He stared at it for a second trying to ignore the frisson of fear running down his spine. The laptop screen was blank. Which meant he had been dozing for more than 10 minutes… No…no…this couldn’t be right! Matt usually revelled in the sense of deja-vu, in the sense of re-living something that felt so real yet had never happened. It was one of those quirks of the human body, one of its occasional faults that only served to highlight the wonder that it actually was. But not this way…
He jiggled his mouse and found himself staring at his Facebook page. The clock showed 7.15pm. A thin line of sweat formed on his brow. He looked outside the window, onto the parking lot, its single halogen lamp half-heartedly throwing light on the car parked under it. The chill ran down his spine again as he reloaded the page. “Inbox (3)” said the top bar. Thank goodness…there was a new message! The déjà vu was over! He permitted himself a cynical smile. He must have dozed off after reading that message and then had that horrible dream. Staring outside vacantly at the shadows cast by a lone sycamore he decided he had probably watched one too many of those Tarantino productions. He was jerked back to wakefulness by the chatter of voices and the clang of a vessel being dropped. It was only then that it dawned on Matt that something was indeed very, very wrong. Suddenly uncertain that he had rid himself of his ’experience,’ he opened his Inbox and read the conversation that was going on between him, Lisa and Justine.
Justine- today at 5.46pm- “Hey Lisa, wie gehts?! I am planning to make some Soufflé this evening…want to come home, say 7pm?
Reply x Delete
Lisa- today at 5.57pm- “Ich bin gut, und du? Ah, Soufflé the original French way sounds very nice! I was planning to make some Zwiebelkuchen…maybe I bring it over and we can eat together?
Matt do you want to join us, it will be great fun?”
Reply x Delete
Justine- today at 6.03pm- “Hey cool, that’s fine! 7pm at my place…and we can force Matt to join us though it looks like he doesn’t really want to :P
Reply x Delete
The room suddenly became stuffy and suffocating. He sat there, staring at the words in front of him, feeling a leaden weight press down on him…Getting up, he peered into the kitchen through the crack in his door, knowing what he was going to see and yet irresistibly drawn forward like a moth is drawn to a flame. From where he was he could just make out Justine breaking some eggs. A few seconds later, Lisa came into view, holding a knife in her left hand, a peeled onion in her right. She set the onion down on the counter and said something to Justine. This time Matt should have been prepared, but he still couldn’t hear what was said. It must have been quite funny though, for the next instant both of them broke into laughter while gesturing at the knife. Justine reached into a shelf and pulled out another knife…
This time Matt didn’t wait. He screamed out loud sending his fear echoing down the narrow corridor.
Click. Ker-pluk. Matt awoke with a start as his door gently swung open and shut…
Moment of Truth
9 years ago
