This short story is based on a recurring dream I’ve been having lately. One afternoon I just wanted to get it out of my head. If you know the deeper meaning please let me know.
Something has been writing in my journal. I wake up and before I can wipe the sleep from my eyes, I see the book open on my desk, the pen strewn to the side, the pages crumpled and mangled and filled with words that I know didn’t write. My handwriting is neat, block capitals carefully placed to preserve a sense of calm and order, this writing is a manic scratch, violent inky stabs perforating the pages. The chair in front of the desk is askew, if it isn’t it’s thrown to the floor. The door to the bedroom sits open on its hinges even though I know I’ve locked it the night before. Some mornings I refuse to get out of bed, putting off the inevitability of reading what has been scrawled into my diary without my permission. I push the covers aside and every morning I ignore how they are damp with sweat. My knees take a moment to listen to me as I command my legs towards the desk and every time, I see a new cry for help.
Help me.
The pages are torn at the edges of the characters, the pen slicing through the paper with a pen stroke that denotes panic and fury. This is the second week of this ordeal and I truly feel like I am losing my mind. I push the chair back into its home nestled under the empty space in the middle of the desk. I close my journal and ignore it. I have a plan and that plan will fix this and then everything can go back to normal. I’m lying to myself but it’s a good lie.
I’m tired. I am constantly tired nowadays. My skin has taken on a dull grey hue and the bags under my eyes are now suitcases. I wear this constant state of fatigue like a cloak that covers every inch of my being. It hangs like a fog above every interaction and conversation, and I wade through a treacle of exhaustion as I try to pretend to be me. The idea of me is fading slowly like writing in the sand being washed out by the tide. Now all that exists where a version of me once stood is a shadow, a rough estimation of me but not exactly me. I stagger through the days and don’t remember a single detail of them. I fall into my bed and refuse to sleep, out of stubbornness or spite I’m not sure but I stare at the ceiling and fight the urge to pass out because I know when I do I’ll have to deal with all of this again, and I am tired of being tired.
Why won’t you help me.
The desk chair has been thrown against the wall with such force that it’s taken a chunk out of the cheap plasterboard. This new page is slightly torn and small beads of water dilute the ink making it run through the paper. I stand silent staring at my journal frozen with hesitation. This small black book was once my safe place, the only space I could truly be myself, and now it is violated, tarnished by something I don’t know and can’t understand. I don’t know what this thing wants from me. I stand there in place theorising why it’s chosen me. A useless invisible nobody with nothing to offer, a seat filler of the world, and why it must harass me every night wanting, what? Answers? Help? Therapy? I’m in no place to help anyone else. Any casual observer would know this. So why not this thing? Why must it torment me. I pick the chair up from its discarded location and place it back in its rightful place. I start flipping through the journal, back to where I actually used it for its designed function. I look over my old to-do lists, the ways I would write out my formulaic days with a sense of embellishment that would make them seem more interesting if anyone else was to ever pick it up. As I flip through I remember finding the first entry I didn’t write.
Hello?
The handwriting was nowhere near as erratic as it had become in the last few days. Block letters written carefully and emotionally across the page. I continue to flip through the journal, my pages kept neat, with to-do lists lining the top of the pages. Silly things, self-affirmations, prompts for self-care and then paragraphs of word vomit. The uninteresting musings of a bored, tired and unremarkable life.
Can you help me?
I turn the pages again.
HELP ME.
I keep flicking through.
LET ME GO.
As the passages go by the writing becomes frantic and furious. Each plea written louder and conveying more pain. I slam the cover shut. I place the pen atop the journal and take a deep breath, my palms resting on the edge of the desk. I go to the bed and hold the covers over my head as I hear the desk chair slide out and the top of the pen click to life.